Mobile Internet traffic doubled in the first half of this year, compared to the first half of 2016, from 71 thousand TB to 145 thousand TB, according to the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM).
“As expected, the average monthly mobile internet consumption per connection exceeded 1 GB, rising from 0.63 GB in the first half of 2016 to 1.20 GB in the first half of this year” said the newly ANCOM President Sorin Grindeanu in a press conference.
The Authority shows that, in Romania, the total number of broadband mobile internet connections reached 16.6 million at mid-2017, i.e. increased by 13 percent yoy, while the penetration rate of the mobile Internet at population level reached 85 percent, up almost 10 percentage points compared to June 2016.
The number of broadband mobile internet subscriptions is steadily growing, these representing more than 67 percent of all broadband connections (11.2 million connections). The number of prepaid cards for broadband mobile internet access witnessed a slighter growth, by 6 percent, to 5.5 million.
4G connections recorded the highest growth rate – they doubled compared to the same period of 2016, reaching almost half of all broadband mobile internet connections (7.6 million out of a total of 16.6 million).
The total traffic achieved through broadband mobile internet connections amounted to 145 thousand TB in the first half of 2017, twice as much as in the first semester of last year, when a traffic of 71 thousand TB was achieved.
According to ANCOM statistics, the number of broadband fixed internet connections in Romania reached 4.6 million at mid-2017, increasing by 6 percent year-on-year. Through these connections, the users achieved a total traffic of 2.5 million TB, with an average monthly consumption per connection of 92 GB.
The number of fixed internet connections installed in the urban area increased by 8 percent compared to the first half of the previous year, to 3.3 million, while the number of connections in rural areas registered a slight increase of 3 percent, reaching 1.3 million. The penetration rate of fixed Internet access connections at household level reached 69 percent in urban areas and, respectively, 38 percent in rural areas.
The broadband fixed Internet infrastructure, which makes it possible to connect to the Internet at high transfer speeds in Romania, is dominated by cable connections (over 77 percent of the fixed internet connections reach the end user via FTTH, coaxial cable or UTP/FTP cable). Both the number and the share of xDSL connections in the total connections decreased to 18 percent of all the broadband fixed Internet connections.