While a study of the European Commission puts prices for mobile broadband and telephony in Slovakia among the most expensive in the European Union, the Slovak telecom authority claims the opposite. It stated that the selection of just two mobile operators, while as many as four operate in Slovakia, is behind the inaccurate results.
“The regulatory office checked the comparison of prices done by the European Commission and found shortcomings, distorting the results significantly,” said Roman Vavro, spokesperson of the Slovakia’s Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications and Postal Services (RÚ), as cited by the SITA newswire.
The EC only included the prices of operators Slovak Telekom and Orange Slovensko in the comparison, but used the prices of all operators for the other countries included.
“After the prices of O2 and Swan Mobile (4ka) were added, Slovakia moved from the category of the most expensive countries to among the cheapest,” said Vavro.
The study of the European Commission headlined, Mobile Broadband Prices in Europe 2019, was published in late January. It read that comparing normalised prices in euros, the inexpensive countries for mobile broadband in the EU are Estonia, Romania, Poland, Italy, Sweden, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Austria, and the United Kingdom. Prices differ considerably between the least and most expensive countries in the EU. The four most high-priced countries are Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Greece, and Slovakia.
“Compared to all EU28 countries, prices for mobile broadband and telephony in Slovakia are, across the offers studied, nearly twice as expensive as the EU average,” reads the study. “No offers were found to be less expensive than the EU average.”
3. Feb 2020 at 12:00 | Compiled by Spectator staff
