The story of Romania's success. Why this country is outperforming Germany in terms of internet access

Sunday, Jun 2, 2024

Romania rapidly built a fast internet network through community efforts, leading to high fiber penetration compared to EU averages.

๐Ÿ”— Read the article on wyborcza.pl


[This is an automatically generated summary, for reference only]

Romania began building a broadband network in the 2000s, shortly after emerging from isolation under Nicolae Ceauศ™escu’s regime. While many Europeans were just getting acquainted with the internet, Romania quickly became one of the fastest and best-connected countries in the EU, with over 95% of households having FTTP access, significantly higher than the EU average. This rapid development was partly due to Romanians starting from scratch, building neighborhood networks using cables on rooftops rather than relying on outdated copper infrastructure common in other former Eastern Bloc nations. Despite its advanced broadband connectivity and high internet speeds, Romania still lags behind in areas like home mobile phone penetration and e-commerce adoption compared to some EU leaders. In contrast, countries like Greece suffer from very slow and expensive internet due to a lack of fiber optic coverage, with concerns also raised about connection quality.


๐Ÿ”— Read the original article

ยฉ 2026 Pulse - Europe beyond the beat


PULSE is an initiative for cross-border collaborative journalism in Europe co-funded by the European Commission under Grant Agreement n. PO 4500158093.

PULSE is an initiative coordinated by OBCT that has been promoting intensive journalistic cross-border collaborations in Europe since 2024. Its main aim is to help strengthen the European public sphere by reporting on and telling stories from new and diverse perspectives.

At the heart of PULSE are 10 leading national news outlets (Delfi โ€“ Lithuania, Denรญk Referendum โ€“ Czechia, Der Standard โ€“ Austria, EfSyn โ€“ Greece, El Confidencial โ€“ Spain, Gazeta Wyborcza โ€“ Poland, HotNews โ€“ Romania, HVG โ€“ Hungary, Il Sole 24 Ore โ€“ Italy, Mediapool โ€“ Bulgaria) and three transnational organisations, including OBCT , n-ost and Voxeurop .

Additional outlets and journalists are involved as associate partners, including EUobserver , Fรธljeton (Denmark), H-Alter (Croatia), Levila (Estonia), Rubryka (Ukraine), and The Journal Investigates (Ireland).

PULSE is driven by a sort of virtual transnational newsroom made up of journalists from all the publications involved. It collaboratively produces new journalistic content on European issues on a daily basis, coming in many different languages. The editorial output amounts to over a thousand publications per year, mostly in article form.

PULSE also runs 4 thematic networks open to any European journalist interested in crucial issues such as EU enlargement, relations between the EU and other global powers, the EUโ€™s green transition, or media and the information society. These networks function as online communities and periodically publish calls for pitches.