Fixed Internet users in Romania have generated a total download and upload traffic of 2.6 million TB in the first half of the year, with an average monthly consumption of 101 GB per user, according to data from Romania’s telecom regulator ANCOM.

“This traffic was achieved as the number of high-speed fixed Internet connections continued to grow, Romania having the best average speed for fixed Internet access in Europe,” said Catalin Marinescu, ANCOM president.

At the end of June, the Romanians were accessing the Internet using 4.3 million fixed broadband connections, 5% more than in the same period last year. Moreover, more than half of these connections allowed speeds of at least 100 Mbps (56%), and 36% of them allowed best-effort speeds between 10 Mbps and 100 Mbps.

“With an average maximum Internet access speed of 84.2 Mbps for fixed Internet connections, Romania ranks first in Europe, according to the Akamai State of the Internet Connectivity Report for the second quarter of 2016,” reads the ANCOM statement.

The statistics also show that the number of fixed Internet connections installed in rural areas registered a slightly higher growth compared to those installed in the cities – 5% in the countryside vs. 4% in urban regions. The number of connections in rural areas reached 1.2 million while in cities there were 3.1 million connections.

In terms of speed distributions provided by area of residence, most connections that enable high-speed data transfer of at least 100 Mbps are located in urban areas. Only 0.3 million of the 2.4 million high-speed connections are in the countryside.

The penetration rate, namely the number of fixed Internet connections divided by the number of households, reached 53% nationwide. The rate was higher in the urban areas, namely 67%, compared to only 35% in rural regions.

ANCOM also shows that the Romanians don’t use their fixed phones so often anymore. The voice traffic generated in the first half of this year decreased by approximately 14% compared to the first semester of 2015, to 1.7 billion minutes. On average, the Romanians talked 1 hour and 17 minutes per month on their fixed phones, 11% less than in the first half of 2015. One call had an average duration of 3 minutes and 7 seconds.

Both the number of subscribers and the number of telephone lines witnessed slight decreases of some 1%, to 3.7 million subscribers, respectively to 4.2 million lines.

The ANCOM statistical data report on the Romanian electronic communications market in the first half of 2016 is based on the statistics reported by the active electronic communications service providers that carried out commercial activities between January 1 and June 30, 2016.

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Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com