Ministry to Speed Up 4G Spectrum Auction
Ljubljana, 01 May (STA) - The Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Sport is to speed up the procedures for a public call for bids for 4G mobile telecommunications frequencies. Slovenia's two biggest mobile operators have already expressed interest for providing LTE-based 4G mobile broadband services.
The ministry is thus preparing a development strategy for mobile
telecommunications and the call for tenders is being prepared by the Agency
for Post and Electronic Communications (APEK), which is analysing
experience of other countries with 4G introduction.
According to an
EU decision, member states are to open the 800 MHz band for electronic
telecommunications, introducing 4G, by 1 January 2013, however, APEK could
not predict when the LTE call for bids would in fact come out in
Slovenia.
The 800 MHz frequency band was freed with Slovenia's
transition from analogue to digital terrestrial broadcasting (DVB-T) in
December 2010.
The ministry says it will also consider the priority
of providing 4G-network access to rural parts of Slovenia, which are
currently lagging behind urban areas in broadband internet access.