Telenor Serbia

Last updated June 2012

Telenor Serbia became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Telenor on 31 August 2006 through the acquisition of Mobi 63 d.o.o. Telenor Serbia offers advanced voice and non-voice services to subscribers on both a prepaid and contract basis. Non-voice services include SMS, MMS, mobile content services and Internet service. As at 31 March 2012, Telenor Serbia had a total of 3.1 million mobile subscriptions. As at 31 March 2012, the mobile penetration and number of inhabitants in Serbia were 125% and 7.1 million, respectively.

Network and licences

Telenor Serbia currently holds 10 year licences for GSM 900 MHz/1800 MHz and 3G which commenced on 31 August 2006, and are renewable for a successive 10 year period on application. In January 2010, Telenor Serbia acquired a licence for public fixed telecommunications networks and services. The licence was issued for 10+10 years and expires in 2030.

Competition

In addition to Telenor Serbia, there are two other mobile operators in Serbia: Mobile Telephony of Serbia (MTS), which is wholly-owned by the incumbent telecom operator Telekom Serbia, and VIP mobile, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mobilkom Austria. Both MTS and VIP mobile hold GSM and UMTS licences. Telenor Serbia estimates that it had a market share of approximately 35.0% as at 31 March 2012. As at 31 March 2012, the market leader, MTS, had an estimated market share of 46.6% and VIP mobile had a market share of 18.4%. There are currently no service providers or MVNOs operating in the Serbian market for mobile telecommunication services. In addition, Telekom Serbia and Media Works (a member of Greenhouse Telecommunications Holding) acquired a CDMA 450 (FWA) licence in May 2009.

Regulatory matters

In regard to market regulation, The Republic Agency for Telecommunication (RATEL) in 2011 designated Telenor as SMP for the market for termination in mobile networks and issued demand for a reference interconnection offer. According to the Law on Electronic Communications, after RATEL issued demand for reference offer, Telenor had 60 days to provide RATEL with reference offer for termination into mobile network. The reference offer was based on established interconnection agreements with other stakeholders, with adjusted content according to the bylaw on content of reference offer.

After RATEL’s review of reference offers of all mobile operators, set up fee was abolished, and symmetrical approach for MTRs within all three mobile operators was maintain. RATEL also pointed out necessity for establishing 3-5 years MTR glide path plan by the end of 2012. Additionally Telenor provided RATEL with comments to Telekom Serbia’s reference offer, focusing primarily on collocation and local loop unbundling and benchmark for CEE countries by which conditions and timelines from contracts with Telekom Serbia should be significantly shortened.

A Frequency Allocation Plan (FAP) that introduces technology neutrality and new frequency bands for mobile services is in the process of being adopted by the Government. Telenor submitted comments on a draft FAP, pointing out the necessity of implementing technology neutrality without additional licence fees in order to achieve faster deployment of UMTS 900 and LTE 1800.

Mobile number portability (MNP) was introduced in Serbia as of 1 July 2011. For the purposes of regulating the administrative process of MNP and making this service more user friendly, RATEL and mobile operators signed a joint protocol on porting numbers in mobile networks.

According to the bylaw on fixed number portability (FNP), FNP procedure should start in December 2012. Telenor submitted comments on the technical specification for the FNP database, but also pointed out the necessity of resolving administrative processes prior to the start of FNP, especially in cases of combined FNP and local loop unbundling customer requests.

Amendments to the numbering plan came into force as of 28 April 2012 and regulate the new terms and conditions for short codes planned for emergency, public interest and commercial services, carrier selection and premium rate services. Dialling of short codes starting with digit ”1” will be enabled by the end of June 2012 and existing codes started with ”9” will be kept in parallel until the end of 2012.