Will roll out over the next two to three years but not in the country’s two main cities
O2 Slovakia and Slovak Telekom have concluded an agreement on sharing their mobile network infrastructure which they say will boost signal quality and speed up new services delivery.
The two will use the money saved to invest in further optical connections to 5G base stations. In a statement the two stressed the network sharing would in no way impact their respective commercial independence or market competitiveness. “Each operator will continue to have its own offer of mobile services, be it flat-rates, prepaid cards or other solutions,” the two stated.
The two largest cities Bratislava and Košice will not be affected by the agreement and the operators will manage their networks independently in these cities. The rest of Slovakia will be divided into two areas, with roughly the same number of base stations, the service and operation of which will be handled by the operators as per the agreement conditions.
“Because we care about the best possible customer experience, we have excellent news for them this time as well,” said O2 CEO Igor Tóth. “As one of the leaders in covering Slovakia with high-speed connections, we will develop mobile networks even faster than before and bring new technologies to areas where it would have taken longer in the past,” he said.
“At the same time, this agreement will not affect our mutual competition and we will continue to compete for the favour of customers with our unique portfolio of products and services and the quality of customer care,” he added.
“With the growing costs of network development, new solutions to make them more efficient are also coming to the market,” said Slovak Telekom and T-Mobile Czech Republic CEO José Perdomo Lorenzo. Now is the time to share networks, because we are going through a wave of massive modernisation along with the deployment of 5G networks.”
“All networks will be modernised, and it is a big moment for operators, including a positive impact in the context of energy, environment and sustainability of the whole sector,” he said. “Network sharing is established in several markets in Europe, including the Czech one, and the same partners will join forces in Slovakia as well, while using the acquired knowledge.”
“The agreement fulfils regulatory obligations and respects operators’ independence to innovate and differentiate themselves from the competition,” said Lorenzo. “The benefit of sharing will be especially appreciated by our customers, who will be able to continue using services in top, award-winning networks and their coverage will improve.”
Ownership change at O2
PPF Group recently sold its majority stake in O2 Slovakia to e&. As part of that deal, e& also acquired stakes in infrastructure companies CETIN and mobile operators Yettel in the Bulgarian, Hungarian and Serbian markets, as well as in O2 Slovakia and O2 Networks Slovakia. O2 and CETIN in the Czech Republic were not part of the transaction.