June 11 (SeeNews) - Mobile operators in Croatia have invested some 320 million kuna ($49 million/43 million euro) in the first quarter of 2019, twice the amount they invested a year earlier, the country's telecommunications regulator, HAKOM, said.
The investment followed fee reductions and the awarding of new 2,100 MHz and 2,600 MHz frequency bands during the period under review, HAKOM said in a statement last week.
Revenues from mobile telephony services rose almost 3% on the year in the first quarter with a simultaneous increase in the number of users. The number of sent SMS and MMS, however, decreased 13% on the back of stronger use of alternative Internet applications.
Internet traffic was 23% higher than a year earlier with growth of data traffic in mobile networks outpacing the growth in fixed networks, HACOM said, adding that data traffic in mobile networks currently represents a quarter of total traffic but its share is rapidly increasing.
The number of broadband Internet connections in fixed networks rose just over 3% on an annual basis, HAKOM said. It explained that the number of connections through copper pairs has been constantly decreasing, while fibre optic and high-speed cable network connections have been on the rise.
(1 euro = 7.41583 )