The total number of fixed broadband connections reached 4.3 million at the end of 2015, by 6.1% more compared to the same period of 2014. By means of these connections, the users achieved a total traffic of 4.5 million TB, averaging 91 GB monthly consumption per user.  

Out of the total fixed broadband connections, 52% enable speeds of at least 100Mbps, which brings Romania to the top of a European ranking as regard the share of ultra-fast broadband connections in the total number of connections. 14% of the connections enable high speeds as well, ranging between 30Mbps and 100Mbps, 20% enable speeds ranging between 10Mbps and 30Mbps, 13% enable speeds between 2Mbps and 10Mbps, the rest (under 1%) enabling less than 2Mbps. Moreover, by residence area, the number of connections installed in rural areas increased by +6.8% (up to 1.17 million connections), compared to the urban area growth of +5.9% (to 3.1 million connections).

Regarding end-user access infrastructure, at end-2015, we witness constant growth in the number of FTTH connections, which amounted to 428 thousand (+196%, as well as in the number of radio, satellite and mobile connections, which reached 144 thousand (+151%). Furthermore, due to the natural refurbishment of fiber-optic networks and to the operators’ investments in new technologies, xDSL and FTTx connections using UTP/FTP last mile decreased by more than 5%, but they still hold a leading share in the total number of broadband internet access connections - FTTx connections using UTP/FTP last mile – 50%, respectively xDSL connections – 23%.

Fixed telephony use kept adeclining trend during 2015, both in the number of access lines (-6%, down to 4.27 million) and, respectively, in the number of subscribers (-6%, down to 3.71 million), and on the level of their traffic volume. On 31 December 2015, the fixed telephony penetration rate per 100 inhabitants was 21.5%, whereas the fixed telephony penetration rate per 100 households was 46.5%.

The voice traffic achieved by means of fixed networks reached 3.8 billion in 2015, dropping by 16% in a year. All voice traffic categories registered decreases: traffic to fixed public networks decreased by 18% down to 2.5 billion minutes, traffic to mobile public networks diminished by 14%, down to 1 billion minutes, respectively international traffic sunk by 11%, down to 286 million minutes.

In 2015, the monthly average traffic volume registered per access line was 1 hour and 12 minutes, by 10 less than this average value in 2014, with an average call length of 3 minutes and 6 seconds.

ANCOM elaborated the statistical data report on the H II 2015 electronic communications market in Romania based on the data submitted by the active providers of electronic communications services who conducted commercial activity during 1 July – 31 December 2015 and will be available soon, on www.ancom.org.ro.