21923 - SCTE Broadband Aug2023 COMPLETE v1 (1)

37 Vol. 45 No. 3 - September 2023 Issue from the industry cables. A lot of them suffered as a result; they went bankrupt and some of them left the country. So prior to 1998, if there was no copper cable, what was there? CB: We had Romtelecom, like BT in the UK, and they had a lot of copper cable, but they removed them around 5-10 years ago. RCS&RDS (DIGI) were able to push ahead from 2000 towards a full fibre optic network in competition with the incumbent operator and Romania was able to advance directly into higher speeds with the newest technologies. The revolution enabled a ‘ground zero’ telecoms landscape, so Romania was able to leapfrog a number of painful stages the rest of us had to go through and are still living with? CB: Exactly right. At your event I was fascinated to hear Adrian Răcă ș an from Netcity Telecom describe the long shadow of Soviet rule - as far as the exterior of Romanian buildings is concerned - as a way of explaining the issues the country faces with unsightly cabling, which is prevalent all over Bucharest. What do you think is going to help change this attitude? For background: It was explained to us by Adrian that historically, the only spaces that Romanians could call their own were the interiors of their own homes, and even after the fall of Communism and Romania welcomed capitalist society, it is still seen even now that the maintenance of the exterior of one’s home is someone else’s job – the government – and this has been a hard habit to break. Consequently cabling is a mess, as is the more general building maintenance in privately owned homes. – Ed. CB: It’s a big issue in Romania because more than 90% of Romanians own houses here. In places like Switzerland, 90% rent their homes, but in Romania it’s a big problem. That’s quite a mountain to climb. CB: It also extends into the fibre roll out. We had the biggest private public partnership in Romania; historically that only affected public areas, but this involved going inside people’s homes for the first time. Homes are private, so you need a special permit and an owner permit. Was there resistance to that? CB: I’m afraid so; people were worried letting engineers into their homes would cause damage, so all that happened was migration of cables from poles to people’s fences instead. In other countries all the cables lead directly inside the houses/ buildings and not at the box on people’s fences. In the streets of Bucharest 1700km of cables have been laid out of a total of 5000km. They’ve got another agreement with a French investor to grow up in the next 3 years to reach up to 3300 km of fibre optic network in Bucharest. In Bucharest, like any city, cables should really be underground, so we have that to contend with anyway, but getting into people’s houses is the biggest issue. In my house I put a handhole in which the cable comes from outside, from the city, so the infrastructure comes to my home. The ODB connection box is at the back side of the house where it’s not visible; so you don’t see anything on the front. I had issues with my neighbours because of this; I advised them to install the connection box on the wall of their houses inside their premises, instead of installing on the fence. One said yes, the other said no, he didn’t want any help. You can see there is a lack of consensus and education. At some point in the future they will see that cables are not nice, but this lack of consensus and general selfishness is a problem. It’s preventing progress. Your museum is in its infancy, but your enthusiasm is infectious. What does success look like for you, and how far into the future are you looking? CB: I built it because it’s a question of legacy I think; this is what I lives on after I am gone. The museum should be like a treasure, it’s a future heritage for future people. For education, for communications. My plan for the museum is to stay here at this site at the Technical Museum for a year or two as we generate more interest. And within the next five years we plan for this museum will have his own site; by then I want it to be well known, at least in Europe.