Why Is The Internet In Romania So Damn Fast?

[bcman]

March 15, 2012 by Anil P.

via @Andrei

Romania, and Bucharest specifically, is something of a travel blogger’s digital fantasy come true. Walk down most streets, stop on any corner, whip out your smart phone and more often than not you’ll find a wireless connection. That’s open. No password required; generally because a commodity as common as an Internet connection here isn’t worth stealing.

In fact, Romania has the world’s second fastest Internet at about 15 megabytes per second (mbps), second behind only South Korea. To put that in perspective, that’s nearly 5 times the average connection an American has in their home. So how does a country with less than 1% of the United States GDP and 50th on the Human Development Index (HDI) – compared to South Korea’s number 15 ranking – jump to the front of the online race?

Yes, there are the technological components for those binary bits to run along but it’s who’s behind those wires and how they got there that’s a more interesting story.

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