Internet speed in Europe: the case of Romania

Romania is a virtuous example of how European funds for investment in information and telecommunications infrastructure can make a difference in offering quality services to citizens. A look at the data

The European Union has set out to offer  its citizens an Internet download speed of at least 100 Megabits per second (Mbps). The goal was set for 2025, but it seems that the results will be achieved even sooner.

Looking at the navigation speed data made available by Ookla, we can see that all European countries have made great strides in recent years, managing to develop their digital infrastructures in a significant way. Since 2019, Internet speed has more than doubled, on average, in much of Europe, and in some areas it has increased even more dramatically.

Looking more specifically at the most recent data – referring to the second quarter of 2023 – we can see that Italy is well above the threshold set by the EU, with an average speed of 142.7 Mbps, and there are now only three member states of the EU where performance still remains below the 100 Mbps threshold. They are all part of South-Eastern Europe: Bulgaria with an average speed of around 98.3 Mbps, Croatia with 90.2, and Greece with just 60.3. Greece is also the only EU country that performs similarly to, or often worse than, the non-EU countries in the area: in Serbia the Internet has an average speed of 92.06 Mbps, in Montenegro 76.52, in Kosovo 75.92, and in Albania 61.89. Only North Macedonia and Bosnia Herzegovina underperform Greece, with download speeds of 45.62 Mbps and 44.81 Mbps respectively.

Still in South-Eastern Europe, however, Romania stands out as a virtuous case. Indeed, the country is third in the EU for landline Internet services, thanks to the average speed of around 204.7 Mbps which places it just below Spain (205.1 Mbps). France, with its 242 Mbps, is the European country with the best Internet performance ever.

The situation in Romania

Ookla's data show the average Internet speed town-by-town. Observing the situation in Romania in detail, it is apparent that the excellent performance of the country is not driven only by the large urban centres. Despite some differences, most Romanian municipalities boast excellent performance. As many as 1964 municipalities out of the 3001 for which we have data, or 65.4% of the total, have a download speed of at least 100 Mbps.

The reason why Romania is able to provide cutting-edge services can be traced back to the shrewd investments made by the country in the development of its digital infrastructures, which in addition to offering better navigation opportunities to its citizens is also a tool for attracting investors  and creating new businesses in the country.

Many of these investments were made possible by the EU cohesion policy. In the 2014-2020 period alone, the EU allocated over 455 million Euros to Romania for projects relating to information technology and telecommunications. Of this, more than 54 million dollars were spent directly on consumer broadband development projects. The projects were managed by seven different companies, all based in Romania.

The financed projects involved almost all areas of the country, as can be seen on the map.

New investments planned

Given the results achieved in recent years, in the EU financial programming period 2021-2027 Romania will not use many European funds to further enhance its connectivity. However, over 1.16 billion Euros are foreseen under the expenditure item "Taking advantage of digitalisation": these projects, relying on the excellent Romanian digital infrastructure, will try to assist businesses and the public administration in providing better and more competitive services.