Serbian Mobile Units of Norway’s Telenor, Austria's Mobilkom To Skip Upcoming Fixed-line Tender - Media

Telenor Serbia has no intention to participate in the procedure, online news portal Poslovni Dnevnik (www.poslovni.hr) reported, quoting Telenor’s Media Coordinator, Goran Stupar.

Mobilkom unit Vip Mobile told Poslovni that the company is currently focused on the mobile services market.

Serbia's Telecommunications Minister Jasna Matic has said that the country's telecoms regulator, Ratel, will call a tender for a second domestic provider of fixed-line voice services by November 11.

State-owned Telekom Srbija is currently the sole provider of fixed-line services in the country of some 9.0 million people. It also controls some 70% of the domestic wireless services market through its unit Mobile Telephony Serbia.

There is little interest among Croatian telecoms companies towards the Serbian market, Poslovni said.

The two largest operators in Croatia, Deutsche Telekom, which owns local telco Hrvatske Telekomunikacije, and Telekom Austria, are already present in Serbia, and new operators are short of the funds required for such projects, it added.

Croatian fixed-line operator Optima Telekom has no plans to expand in the region, head of corporate and marketing communications at the company Pamela Pencinger told Poslovni.

The publication got similar feedback from Croatian TV, fixed-line voice and internet provider B.Net and international telecommunication operator Amis.

According to VoP/VoIP and Internet service provider Metronet Telekomunikacije, in Serbia, like in Croatia, the only recipe for success is to deploy a proprietary telecoms infrastructure.

The CEO of Croatian fixed-line operator H1 Telekom, Kristian Uwe Curkovic, said that the landline tender in Serbia presents an attractive investment opportunity.

"We will not place a bid in this tender, but having in mind that the liberalisation of the telecoms market in Serbia has just begun, we believe that in the future there will be more opportunities for the entry of new players," Poslovni quoted Curkovic as saying.

According to Ratel, Serbia's fixed telephony marked is worth more than 400 million euro ($589 million), and has the biggest growth potential in the region as 41.1% of the population makes calls over landlines versus 37.5% in Croatia, Poslovni said.

($=0.6787 euro)