Romania's Ministry of Communications and Information Society launched on 21 September a public consultation on a grant scheme to fund next generation network (NGN) networks, according Telecompaper. The project aims to cover over 180,000 households across the country in areas that do not have broadband internet access. The project will be funded through the Operational Program Competitiveness 2014-2020 programme, and the amount of the grant is up to EUR 2.975 million for each project. Small, medium sized enterprises and large companies that will submit eligible projects will be selected to develop communications networks, the ministry said in a press release.
The ministry announced at the start of September that it also unlocked the Ro-Net project in August, after almost ten months of stagnation. The Ro-Net project will cover 783 of the 2,268 localities in Romania identified as 'white spaces' and will contribute to reducing the digital divide in urban and rural areas through the offering of access to broadband internet to a number of approximately of 130,000 households with 400,000 inhabitants, 8,500 companies and 2,800 public institutions. The contract for this project was attributed to Telekom Romania.
