This year, Slovakia would sell its new handset frequencies. The process would be the same with the country's neighbor, Czech Republic. In May, Czech Telecommunications Office tried to sell mobile phone frequencies which sparked a price war and reduced costs for mobile users. This resulted to a suspension of the auction for the mobile frequencies.
The telecommunications office in Slovakia planned to publish a stance. This would include the names of every participant that would join the discussion regarding the auction's rules. The information came today, from Slovak Republic's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority's spokesman, Roman Vavro.
Selling 800Mhz, 1,800Mhz and 2,600Mhz bandwidths would lead to a new operator in the country's market. Orange Slovensko AS of French Orange SA, Slovak Telecom of Deutsche Telecom AG and Spain's Telefonica AS' Slovak subsidiary were the three telecommunications company that were dominating Slovakia. Regulators said that any entrance of a fourth operator would rely on the investors' interest.
PPF Group NV's spokesperson, Radek Stavel, said PPF submitted its comments about the Slovak process. PPF was a financial firm that bid against the current operators in an unsuccessful sale of Czech Republic's mobile frequencies. However, the company refused to give more details regarding its possible involvement in the Slovak auction.
In Czech Republic, the bids in the auction were aimed at making the mobile data networks' fourth generation and a market's fourth operator. However, the bids exceeded a total of CZK20 billion or US$1.03 billion for the three bandwidths. The regulator stated that the increase in bids would result to unrealistically high costs of 4G mobile services in the future hence, the sale was suspended.
Join the Conversation