TODAY Slovakia's Telecommunications Office (TÚ) is starting a tender for GSM and UTMS frequencies for a third mobile operator in Slovakia. The operator could start providing its services in 2007, the Pravda daily wrote.
Currently the mobile market in Slovakia is divided between Orange Slovensko and T-Mobile.
According to the Ministry of Transportation, companies that already have invested in the surrounding countries are interested in coming to Slovakia as well. This might include British mobile operator Vodafone or the Spanish Telefónica, which arrived in the Czech Republic in 2005.
A third operator should increase competition on the Slovak mobile market.
In three attempts in the past, however, similar tenders in 1998, 1999, and 2002 brought no competition on the market. According to Pravda, the state failed to soften the conditions for the new operator compared with the conditions under which Orange and T-Mobile invested in Slovakia.
"The third mobile operator will hardly come provided that it does not receive advantages in the investment area," says Juraj Ďurov, who worked in Telenor Networks, a company that was interested in investing in Slovakia's mobile area in the past.
Compiled by Martina Jurinová from press reports
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