20 Dec 2017
Slovakia

Slovakia’s Office for the Regulation of Electronic Communications and Postal Services (Regulacny Urad, RU) says it has begun preparing the ground for the future development of 5G mobile services. The watchdog is urging the country’s wireless operators to utilise spectrum refarming to organise their frequency holdings into contiguous blocks to improve the efficiency of services, adding that it expects to resolve the situation in 2018. The RU recently awarded spectrum in the 3.7GHz band to a number of firms including Amtel, Slovanet, Towercom, DSI Data, O2 Slovakia and HMZ Radiokomunikacie. The regulator says that Slovakia is the only EU country to have fully allocated the 3.5GHz and 3.7GHz spectrum bands which could be used for future 5G networks. The RU is also looking at the 26GHz band for broadband wireless access.

Separately, the RU has opened a consultation into the use of spectrum in the 450MHz band which has been vacated by Slovak Telekom. Earlier this year the telco said it had opted not to utilise its concession offering 2×4.42MHz in the 450MHz range, and the regulator is now proposing a new tender for a larger 2×5MHz duplex block.