I was asked by the Government of Romania (GOR) to develop a voice, video and data network for use by the Public Administration agencies--such as social security, health, finance, communications, development, customs etc.--which are similar to most government agencies in the US. This project was a USTDA funded program and I was employed as a consultant by Teleconsult International, a company that specializes in international communications consulting activities.

Old World Charm and Telecommunications
I was headquartered in Bucharest, the capital city of Romania with around 2.5 million residents. Bucharest is a typical European city, which has lots of old world charm. Unfortunately, the communications is also "old world" throughout much of Romania. After a thorough investigation, it was determined that most communications were done either by voice or Romanian postal services. The principal method of data transmission was via Email service through a couple of GOR service providers.
One of those providers was the educational network (roedunet). The research organization for GOR (rnc.net) also provided this function. Both of these services work quite well, though they are somewhat overloaded and, depending on location, modem facilities are somewhat limited.

Conducting the Study and Design Task
The GOR does recognize that they need to improve communications drastically and as such, that was the purpose of the study and development of final design recommendations.
In order to achieve our objective, we first prepared a survey for all of the GOR agencies involved in public administration and conducted interviews with the telecom person in charge of each agency. A switching/data engineer assisted me in this task and I handled the transmission part, as well as the program management functions. The project started on November 1, 1999 and concluded on March 1, 2000, with a short break over the Christmas holidays.
Romania is a country about the size of Pennsylvania and Ohio combined. It is divided into forty counties and seven legislative districts, with Bucharest being the seat of government. The basic design requirement was for an ATM network, which was to be transported on fiber to all locations. The ATM network design connected all of the ministries and agencies in Bucharest to the seven legislative districts, which in turn connected to the forty counties, approximately seven counties per legislative district.
The design also provided for voice switching on the network, as well as video conferencing and data transmission. Local voice traffic would continue to be handled by the local telco (Romtelecom), which is currently the only telco in Romania. They are going through privatization that is scheduled to be completed in 2001. At that time they will also allow competition from any others (telcos) who might be interested in providing service.

Transmission and ATM Design Elements
Romtelecom has rather extensive service throughout Romania, but is not attuned to a competitive environment, which was one of the reasons for the transmission part of the network design. This part of the design was rather a straightforward approach of using ring philosophy to provide for better protection. Additionally, there was provision made for spare fiber pairs, considering the future possibility of leasing out some of the fibers once the current Romtelecom monopoly is dissolved.
The ATM network design was more complex, as it required a comprehensive study of the current traffic and a prediction of the future traffic requirements. Some good guesstimates were made on both design elements, because of the lack of statistics on real use conditions. But there was sufficient data collected to enable us to come up with some typical traffic conditions.
The network will also connect the current LAN' s in operation in the GOR facilities and a few other existing data networks in operation by the GOR public administration agencies. It also included upgrading of computer facilities to Pentium standards and replacing any that could not be easily upgraded. The final network would interconnect to approximately 5 locations in each county. This would provide service to the local government functions for the people of Romania.

Romania Looking Ahead
The GOR has been invited to join the European Union, so there will be much activity over the next decade in preparing the country for EU standards in telecommunications as well as other infrastructure such as roads, hospitals, transportation etc.
This was a rewarding experience, as it resulted in the development and delivery of a telecommunications design product that can really help the government of Romania get on with enjoining new-world telecommunications, while retaining their old-world charm.

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