The teenagers who wired Romania

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Teenagers Who Wired Romania"

Podcast: The Documentary Podcast (BBC World Service)
Host: Andrada Fiskuten
Date: August 6, 2026

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Overview

This episode tells the remarkable story of how, in the wake of communism’s fall, Romanian teenagers in the 1990s and 2000s ingeniously built one of the fastest, most accessible grassroots Internet infrastructures in Europe. Through interviews with key network pioneers, the show explores themes of DIY innovation, social transformation, and the enduring impact of these neighborhood networks on Romania’s current status as a digital powerhouse.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Life Before the Internet: Under Communism

• Strict Information Control
  • Romanians were highly isolated with only two hours of state television per day, purely propaganda.
  • Contact and information from abroad were restricted. Even letters were read by the state (05:27–06:11).
• Moments of Revolution
  • The 1989 uprising marked a dramatic turning point. Protesters clashed with the regime; the dictator was overthrown (06:33–06:49).
  • "We were so far from what happened in the world. There's no mass media giving to our people information about political life in the democratic states and so on. Now we have to learn." — Eric Bolanu [07:11]

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The Birth of the Neighborhood Networks

• DIY Spirit and Early Computers
  • In the 1990s, a handful of young Romanians tinkered with bulky PCs, hauling setups to each other’s homes (02:39–03:14).
• Primitive Networking
  • Early "networks" used cheap cables daisy-chained between computers. Any break would take down the system (04:05–04:15).
  • "If one of the members would pull out the cable… the network wouldn't run.… My mother is cleaning the house. So it will last for about an hour." — Eric Bolanu, describing frequent outages [04:15]
• First Internet Experiences
  • The dial-up era saw teens crowding Internet cafes to "connect to different culture, a different way of thinking, something completely different to what surrounding you." — Roxana Ardella [05:17]

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The DIY Revolution: Wiring a Country

• Improvisation & Community
  • Young people pooled money to buy a single expensive business Internet connection and split it among many households (10:17–10:28).
  • "We put together the money and... splitted this cost into tens of hundreds of users. So we could pay like €5,6 each." — Eric Bolanu [10:17]
• Physical Challenges & Creative Solutions
  • Scaling buildings, drilling holes without permission, sometimes dangling over rooftops "like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible" (16:04).
  • Throwing potatoes with cables through apartment windows was a signature move (15:18–15:44):
    • "It is funny... because we use a potato. We used to make a hole with the screwdriver in it. You pass the cable through the potato and then you throw it to the ... second building and hope to score." — Roxana Ardella [15:18]
• Neighborhood Businesses Emerge
  • Small local networks grew into Internet providers, with ambitious teens connecting entire blocks and eventually neighborhoods:
    • "In that day, we were installing an entire block." — Laurentiu Simeon [12:59]

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Regulatory Gray Zones and Rivalry

• Legal Limbo
  • The absence of telecom regulation enabled creative solutions. Networks sprang up on every block (22:19–22:36).
    • "Having a lack of legal framework. We were not like legal. We were not also illegal, but we were seeing like gray." — Eric Bolanu [22:36]
  • Police sometimes intervened, so installations often happened at night (22:59).
• Network Wars
  • As more networks appeared, competition became fierce. Rival crews tried to undercut each other—sometimes literally:
    • “When we start passing one next to the other ones in the same blocks, we start also to cut some cables between.” — Laurentiu Simeon [24:07]
• Market Consolidation
  • Larger providers started buying up neighborhood networks. Some teens sold out, others expanded (24:49–25:27).

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Technical Innovation and Romania's Leap Forward

• Fiber-Optic Advantage
  • Some networks switched to fiber, offering high-speed Internet ahead of much of Europe (25:39).
    • "We started to implement fiber... allowed us to deliver high speeds." — Eric Bolanu [25:39]
• Transformation of the Skyline
  • By mid-2000s, cables dominated Bucharest—until authorities pushed for underground cabling (26:05–26:41).
  • Many small networks could not afford these upgrades and faded from the market, leaving big players dominant (27:17).
• Legacy
  • "The three big players here, they have like 98% of the market in Internet connections. And yeah, this is not a good thing." — Eric Bolanu [27:17]
  • The culture of fast, cheap Internet attracted tech businesses and cultivated a generation of programmers:
    • "This happened because of the networks and the speed of the networks. And I think we helped somehow to this developing of technologies." — Laurentiu Simeon [27:56]
    • "Many people open in their mind a way… By having the fast Internet connections, the people were discovering the world somehow." — Laurentiu Simeon [28:51]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On 90s Romania:
  • "All this neighborhood that you see now, it was like a spider web. We used to connect cables over the blocks over there." — Roxana Ardella [01:30]
• On the appeal of the Internet:
  • "It was an explosion of freedom. But it was a little bit chaos because you could do anything." — Eric Bolanu [07:59]
• On ingenuity and risk:
  • "It was very dangerous. But I don't know how I survived the 90s.… you have to go like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible.… now, it's unimaginable. Very, very dangerous." — Roxana Ardella [16:04]
• On the power of community:
  • "We were like a family and a little tribe of children. We also shared connection. We shared the Internet connection." — Roxana Ardella [02:13]
• On building the digital future:
  • "Many people open in their mind a way, their way for life. By having the fast Internet connections, the people were discovering the world somehow." — Laurentiu Simeon [28:51]

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Life Under Communism & the 1989 Revolution: [05:27–07:24]
• Early Post-Communism Networking & Neighborhood Spirit: [02:39–04:49], [10:17–11:49]
• The Potato Toss and Rooftop Installations: [15:18–16:04]
• Regulatory Wild West & Network Conflicts: [19:59–25:27]
• Legacy—Romania’s Digital Leap: [27:17–28:51]

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Conclusion

"The Teenagers Who Wired Romania" showcases a blend of ingenuity, courage, and community spirit that leapfrogged a country from isolation into digital modernity. The work of these young pioneers not only shaped Romania’s Internet landscape but also forged a new social reality—one where open communication and digital skills are part of everyday life. Their legacy endures in the expectations for fast, affordable access, with Romania now a magnet for tech talent and companies alike.

Transcript

[Podcast Advertiser]

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[Andrada Fiskuten]

From the BBC Word Service. This is the documentary. I'm tech journalist Andrada Fiskuten and I'm telling the story of young people who rose up after the fall of communism in Romania and grabbed the future of tech with both hands.

[Roxana Ardella]

All this neighborhood that you see now, it was like a spider web. We used to connect cables over the blocks over there.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

This is Roxana Ardella.

[Roxana Ardella]

Look at the view.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

We're on top of a 14 story tower block in Bucharest, Romania. Rain is drizzling down as we look out over rows and rows of high rises built under communism.

[Roxana Ardella]

What happened in the 90s? Nobody put money into the blocks so everything became so gray.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

This is Roxana's old neighborhood, the district of Pante Limon. Her life on these streets has been shaped by the arrival of the digital world.

[Roxana Ardella]

We were like a family and a little tribe of children. We also shared connection. We shared the Internet connection.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

Roxana is part of a generation of diyers, improvisers and risk takers who have helped build a name for one of Europe's poorest countries in the digital world. They are the teenagers who wired Romania and I'll be telling their story from tower blocks across the capital.

[Eric Bolanu]

My friends were coming to my house with their computers and their big monitors.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

You've met Roxana. Now let's meet Eric bolanu. It's the 1990s and Eric and his friends are some of the first people in the country to get their hands on personal computers and they spend their time working out what they can do on these big bulky machines. They Set them up together in Eric's apartment.

[Eric Bolanu]

I had once, I think, 10 people with 10 computers in my house. Plus through mine, we are using the network to play games and have fun.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

One computer on its own is fun, but join them up with a cable and you have a network. It's not the Internet, it's computer to computer. But you can share files with each other and chat. It's a whole new way of socializing. But in the late 1990s, PCs are heavy, and carrying all those computers up and and down flights of stairs is a lot of work. So Eric tries a different way of linking them.

[Eric Bolanu]

I had a friend at the 10th floor. I wanted to connect him to my network, and he has another friend, the other part of the building. And I started to throw cables between my neighbors to cable their computers to the network. So play chat, sharing files and so on.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

But the network is basic. The cables are cheap and they only work in sequence. If one link in the chain breaks, all the network beyond it crashes.

[Eric Bolanu]

If one of the members would pull out the cable from the computer, the network wouldn't run. So at some point the network is fine, it's working. But at some point the network is not working. So what should we do? We started to search where is the problem? And at some point, I think right here, one of the guys says, okay, I'm sorry, my mother is cleaning the house. So it will last for about an hour, and then the signal will come back.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Game over for everyone.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

So the network is growing, but it's all offline. It's just computer to computer communication, sharing music, movies, software and games. But then things get even more exciting.

[Roxana Ardella]

This connection of the telephone, of the Internet is going like

[Andrada Fiskuten]

dial up Internet connections arrive and Roxana and her friends start going online. In Internet cafes, you could have connection

[Roxana Ardella]

to different culture, a different way of thinking, something completely different to what surrounding you.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

Now, to understand how massive this change is, you have to compare it to life just a few years earlier, when Romania is living under communist rule. Until 1989, Romanians are largely cut off from the West. Very few people are allowed to travel abroad, and interactions with the few foreigners in Romania are not encouraged. Even a letter being sent abroad would be read by the state. Information was strictly regulated.

[Roxana Ardella]

Until 1989, we had only one program that was airing like two hours per night, and we only hear whatever they wanted to say, nothing else, only propaganda.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

During communism, the media has been the mouthpiece of the state and the only way people hear unbiased news and learn about their country and is by listening illegally to radio from outside Romania. Then, in December 1989, there's an uprising.

[Podcast Advertiser]

There's a bullet ricocheting.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

Protesters clash with the regime on the streets.

[Eric Bolanu]

During the night, I heard some noises outside, and I saw a tank making movements in front of the building.

[Roxana Ardella]

My aunt and mother was here, here in Bucharest, and they had a bullet passing through the door.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

A crowd storms the state television station. Three days later, on Christmas Day, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu is killed by a firing squad. Communism is over. In the wake of the revolution, campaigner Yon Karamitru is quick to realize this is a new dawn for Romanian media and communications.

[Eric Bolanu]

We were so far from what happened in the world. There's no mass media giving to our people information about political life in the democratic states and so on. Now we have to learn.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

I think in the years that followed the 1989 revolution, Romanian society is modernizing fast. It goes from those two hours of state prescribed television per day to a country with a free press that is opening a window unto the world. And then the Internet starts to connect Romanians to the rest of the world in a way that had been unthinkable.

[Roxana Ardella]

I mean, you could see, like a bright star in front of you. And this connection with the west, let's say this, opened the doors of everything.

[Eric Bolanu]

It was an explosion of freedom. But it was a little bit chaos because you could do anything. You could open a shop without having too much, I don't know, papers or something. People were doing anything they liked.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

And did all these create unique conditions for your networks?

[Eric Bolanu]

Yes, it created a hunger for communication, for free speech. It came with a need for. Of communication and to be free, to share. This had an impact on how we started

[Andrada Fiskuten]

these networks in the late 1990s. In the Tower blocks of Bucharest, young people are clamoring to be part of this new online world. But Romania's telecom's infrastructure that's meant to support it is basic, to say the least.

[Eric Bolanu]

The phone lines were sharing actually the same line, even they had different numbers. So if I was picking the receiver, I could hear the people if they were talking at that moment.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

And only one of those households sharing the line can use it at once.

[Roxana Ardella]

You're like, please put the phone down. I'm trying to connect the Internet.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

It's clear things need to improve and to move beyond dial up and have a reliable connection at home, not just at an Internet cafe, you need a dedicated line, but that's out of reach for most people.

[Eric Bolanu]

In the late 90s, permanent connection was something like very fancy. The cost was around 2, $300 per month. It was a business subscription, and we couldn't afford to pay this kind of money.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

That's an expensive Internet subscription at the best of times. But in the late 1990s, Romania is grappling with soaring inflation.

[Roxana Ardella]

The price of bread could double in the same day.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

But in these challenging times, the DIY ethos of the neighborhood networkers comes good. They find a way they're able to buy one connection and share it over networks between everyone's computers.

[Eric Bolanu]

We put together the money and we had one of these permanent connections splitted this cost into tens of hundreds of users. So we could pay like €5,6 each

[Andrada Fiskuten]

for each subscription by splitting the cost. Suddenly, everyday Romanians have access to far faster Internet than many people in countries far richer. The idea takes off at the turn of the millennium. More and more people are setting up networks, like Laurento Simeon. Here's our next connection. So we're driving to Laurencio.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

This is a different neighborhood.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

It's called Drumultaberei.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Laurencio built a neighborhood network here, and

[Andrada Fiskuten]

he still owns it.

[Roxana Ardella]

Morning.

[Laurentiu Simeon]

Morning.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

Like a lot of Bucharests, Drumultabere is made of grids of apartment blocks.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

So, Laurentiu, why have you brought us here?

[Laurentiu Simeon]

In this intersection between Valej Alomici street and the Boulevard of Dromoltaberey, we have the place where we installed the first cable and the first hub for our network.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

And if I look at the building

[Interviewer/Reporter]

there, there are some cables. Are those cables cables yours?

[Laurentiu Simeon]

Yes, somehow are still mine. But we go upstairs and we will see how the things are looking from above.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Excellent. Let's go.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

Laurentio takes me to the top floor of the building. We push open a hatch. As we step out, we see the skyline of Bucharest all around us.

[Roxana Ardella]

Wow.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

This is. Hi.

[Roxana Ardella]

Hello.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

Hello, Bucharest.

[Laurentiu Simeon]

This is the place where the thing started, with cables going all around the block to different windows, drilling in the apartment in order to get these wires to the computers.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

And Laurentiu has his work cut out. Everyone wants a couple connection.

[Laurentiu Simeon]

When we start actually to grow was the moment when we had a permanent Internet connection. We also had something to provide the Internet access, which at that time was very valuable.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

And what has begun as a small network built by friends who just want to play video games together, is growing into a business, an Internet provider connecting multiple apartment blocks.

[Laurentiu Simeon]

We're just entering that block. Go start to install. And one more neighbor go out. Come on, bring me a cable inside or another one stopping us on the stairs. Going up. Are you installing the cable? We want also Internet. We are the apartment 55. Okay. Someone will come to you in short time. And in that. That day, we were installing an entire block.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

They're working it out as they go and getting more ambitious.

[Laurentiu Simeon]

When we made the first step on conquering the neighborhood, the first cable was through this block. And the second one was that one from the other side over the small park.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

Laurencio is pointing to another apartment block besides us. To run a cable between the two looks really difficult to do.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

There's quite a bit of gap between this building we're on and the building you said you first connected to the Internet. How did you manage to get a cable?

[Laurentiu Simeon]

We were lowering the cable to the ground from one block and from the other block we were lowering a rope. We just put them together somewhere between them. One guy took one cable, the other one took the rope, put them together and the rope was dropped, taken on the other block. Then the cable came and we secured it. And that's it connected, connecting people.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

But dropping a cable down one side of the building, along the ground and then up the other side means you need a lot of wire.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

How did you find cables?

[Laurentiu Simeon]

We got scraps of cables from big roller of cables. And we used these ones.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

Nothing is going to waste. And improvisation is the name of the game. On some major boulevards, they stop traffic in the dead of the night just long enough to get their cables across. On other streets, electric tram wires mean they can't lower cables down. They have to keep them high. They need a quirkier solution. And Roxana is the maestro at that.

[Roxana Ardella]

It is funny how we used to connect them because we use a potato.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

The potato. Roxana's secret weapon.

[Roxana Ardella]

We used to make a hole with the screwdriver in it. You pass the cable through the potato and then you throw it to the silver second building and hope to score. It was like baseball in all.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

So the potato was.

[Roxana Ardella]

And then when we had money, we not use the potato anymore. Potato was the beginning.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

I mean, looking back to those days through today's eyes, do you think that it was a risky endeavor or not?

[Roxana Ardella]

It was very dangerous. But I don't know how I survived the 90s. Because, for example, when we went to a rooftop like we are now, there were places that you have to go, like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. On the edge of something with feet not so far apart. So if I think about it now, it's unimaginable. Very, very dangerous.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

This is the documentary from the BBC World Service.

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[Andrada Fiskuten]

I'm Andrada Fizkuten and you're listening to the teenagers who Wired the story of young people who build DIY Internet networks that made access affordable and fast. It's the early 2000s and the skyline of Bucharest is laced with cables strung from rooftop to rooftop in a vast improvised web. We're with network builder Laurencio and we're following the trail of his Internet cables to see where they lead back to.

[Laurentiu Simeon]

Like most of the blocks in Bucharest, this is a 10 store building. The 11th floor was used in the past for keeping the clothes from drying and was like. Like a laundry room, laundry rooms, cleaning rooms, whatever.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Then you came here and you basically took over the.

[Laurentiu Simeon]

Took over a corner of it in order to install the first equipment that should connect the apartments using cables outside of the building because it was very easy to install them and there are

[Interviewer/Reporter]

still some cables coming through the window. It feels like there are 20 cables, quite large ones. Yeah, it's enough to Fill the entire bathtub.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

It's amazing to see whatever the obstacle, wherever they need the cables to go, there's always a solution.

[Laurentiu Simeon]

We just putting outside and going through the windows with the cables drilling near the window or in the frame of the window or whatever, because there was not a specific way.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

So we were essentially a bunch of teenagers drilling holes into these walls without any permission and without much adult supervision. It was a wild, wild west. We just saw an opportunity and then did whatever you wanted to do, right?

[Laurentiu Simeon]

Yes, that's right. We did actually whatever we wanted to do. Maybe with some administrators, there came some difficulties.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

Building administrators hold the keys to the rooftops and service rooms. And as you might imagine, they aren't always on board with all the holes being drilled. For cables.

[Laurentiu Simeon]

It was something new. And, you know, the people are more conservative. It's not allowed. Even if there were no regulations, and we used all the time the people who are wanted to connect to our network against them.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

They get the people who want the Internet to push back. They tell them, let them do it. We want the Internet. Over in Bucharest's Colentina neighborhood, I asked Eric if he's had these battles.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Were there people who oppose those?

[Eric Bolanu]

Yes, yes, yes. We had a lot of building administrators, and when we started to pull the cables inside the buildings, some of them asked us, what are you doing here? What's this cable for? Okay. It's for Internet. What is Internet? We have cable. What will. What do we need? Internet. We have TV cable. Internet is for, you know, computers, communicating. Oh, I don't need this. You are not allowed to install new cables into the building. We have enough cables. We don't want hose and cables and another things on the wall. So you are not allowed. So because of this, we used to put equipments inside the apartments. So you are not allowing me to come with the cable on the common part of the building. Okay, I will go directly to the window, and then from that window I will go directly to. Definitely doing. This is how we started to pull cables directly between the windows. So these things happened down on the

[Andrada Fiskuten]

street, there are poles built to carry telecom and electricity cables, but now they are being weighed down with wires for the networks. In many places, this might be against the law, but in Romania in the early 2000s, the regulations had. Haven't kept up.

[Eric Bolanu]

Having a lack of legal framework. We were not like legal. We were not also illegal, but we were seeing like gray. Yes. People that are doing weird things on the. On the walls.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Did the police interfere with. With your work at different times, not so many times.

[Eric Bolanu]

Usually when they were sitting, pulling cables on the poles, they were asking us if we have papers. Sometimes we couldn't show the papers. So they okay, you should go home. And we preferred to work during the nights, because it was no traffic, no police, whatever.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

And this legal limbo is a golden opportunity.

[Laurentiu Simeon]

Without the regulation, you can do whatever you want. And even if you install them in the past, nobody will request afterwards remove them. And many big companies made the networks like this. They just installed it without regulations. All the companies did the same.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

Networks are springing up all over Bucharest. 1400 by 2006. With all this competition, rivalries are building.

[Laurentiu Simeon]

We were searching all the time, like in the world, you search all the time solution in order to improve your connection.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

And was there a lot of tension between overlapping networks?

[Laurentiu Simeon]

Everything was fine till we start to have group of guys entering, ganging up on the next block and started competition, discussing who will get on the next block, who will give the best offer for this connection, and so on. When we start passing one next to the other ones in the same blocks, we start also to cut some cables between.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Oh,

[Andrada Fiskuten]

and there's competition from all sides. Larger Internet providers are muscling in and trying to increase their share of the market by taking over the smaller business.

[Laurentiu Simeon]

When the company started to buy, some of the people decided to sell their networks to get some money, instead of competing the other networks. Slowly, slowly, we acquired some clients. We acquired some small companies.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

Fortunately for Eric, his company is one of the bigger network, neighborhood Networks. And he starts to take over local rivals.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

How many clients did you have at peak?

[Eric Bolanu]

5,000? Around 5,000.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

And the appeal of the neighborhood networks is how fast they are. At a time when most countries are still using copper cabling, Eric and others adopt a more modern approach.

[Eric Bolanu]

We started to implement fiber in our networks. This became an advantage for us, because building fiber networks allowed us to deliver high speeds.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

But as Romania prepares to join the European Union in 2007, this makeshift infrastructure starts to cause problems. And there's a push to clean up the wires.

[Eric Bolanu]

The poles started to be buried in cables, and usually the operators didn't remove all the unused cables from the poles. So the municipality started this project to allow every operator to build a network underground without need to dig. So it was a good thing, but it comes with us underground.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

King Cabling is the future. It's tidy and safe. But because of the costs, a lot of the neighborhood networks come to the same conclusion.

[Eric Bolanu]

I know a lot of people with small networks in the same Approach, okay, When they come to force me to bury the cables, then I will stop delivering services.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

So today the cables across the sky skyline are largely gone, and so too are many of the people running networks. Roxana has left to work in film, and Eric and Laurentiu are among less than 300 small providers still going. Competition with larger companies is just so tough.

[Eric Bolanu]

The three big players here, they have like 98% of the market in Internet connections. And yeah, this is not a good

[Andrada Fiskuten]

thing, but the impact of those neighborhood networks lives on. Romania is a digital success story, a country punching above its weight. Highly affordable, fast connections are something people here simply expect. And today it's a powerhouse for software development. And all this might never have happened if it wasn't for the teenagers who wired Romania.

[Laurentiu Simeon]

This happened because of the networks and the speed of the networks. And I think we helped somehow to this developing of technologies. And our fast Internet also attract many big tech companies in Romania and thousands of employees from all over.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

So a lot of people learned how to use software and learned how to code by using your networks.

[Laurentiu Simeon]

For sure, there were.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

So after five decades of communism in which the country was closed, the borders were closed, there was very little, little interaction with the foreigners. Finally, everyone could have access to the wider world without crossing the border, right?

[Laurentiu Simeon]

Many people open in their mind a way, their way for life. By having the fast Internet connections, the people were discovering the world somehow.

[Andrada Fiskuten]

You've been listening to the documentary from the BBC Word Service. It was presented by me, Andrada Fiskuten.

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