Romania spends EUR 26 mln on connecting schools in rural areas and small towns to the Internet

Schools in several of Romania's rural areas and in small towns will be connected to the internet in the next six months. A EUR 26.6 million program was recently signed, allowing 2,500 schools to get broadband Internet access. Over 700,000 students and 156,000 teachers will benefit from the new service, in what will become the pilot project. Between 2014 and 2020, 7,000 other schools will be connected to the Internet via similar programs. So far, 11,000 schools across Romania already have an Internet connection. With the new projects, by 2020 Romania will have almost all its schools connected to the Internet. The country has around 24,000 schools. For the new project, the contract for supplying the communication services was signed by the Education Ministry with a consortium made of Omnilogic and Avitech, with telecom firm Romtelecom as subcontractor. The value of the contract is of some EUR 26.6 million. It covers an implementation period of six months, and a maintenance period of five more months. editor@romania-insider.com