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Slovenia - Market Intelligence Report
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Market Intelligence Reports provide an invaluable mix of vital market data and background information, including telecoms regulation. Slovenia's telecommunications market was fully-liberalised at the beginning of January 2001, with the markets for fixed-line local, long-distance, and international telecommunications services joining the mobile communications, data communications/Internet access, and value-added services markets in being opened to participation from alternative operators and service providers. However, after more than six years, incumbent state-controlled Telekom Slovenije remains a dominant presence in the market through a combination of entrenchment, a hard-line approach to pricing interconnection rates, and a perceived inability or unwillingness on the part of the "independent" regulator to become directly involved in forcing Telekom to moderate its influence. Although a number of fixed-line operators have been licensed, few have yet begun offering services directly or via the Telekom Slovenije network due to difficulties encountered in establishing commercially viable unbundling and co-location agreements, and some have resorted to offering telephony services over their Internet backbones. Following the listing of its shares on the Ljubljana Stock Exchange in late-2006, the government is now proceeding with plans to privatise Telekom Slovenije in order to increase the distance between its dual roles as shareholder and regulator, which should in turn stimulate competition. An international tender for the sale of a minority stake in Telekom Slovenije has a target launch date of late-August 2007. Around 39% of Telekom Slovenije is to be sold to a strategic investor. The Republic of Slovenia is expected to retain a 25% plus one share stake in the company The mobile market has three licensed cellular operators and two service providers. However, Telekom Slovenije also dominates here, with its Mobitel subsidiary accounting for more than two-thirds of all mobile phone users as of March 2007. Until recently, it also held the country's only third-generation (3G) licence, other potential bidders having been scared off by the high licence fees involved. The spare 3G licences were offered again in 2006, with rival 2G cellular operator Si.mobil and new entrant T-2 proving successful with bids of just over €6 million each. Also in 2006, APEK auctioned fixed wireless broadband licences, with Telekom Slovenije and newcomer Tok Telekom (possibly an affiliate of fixed-line operator Voljatel) proving successful. SiOL is Telekom Slovenije's Internet service provider (ISP). Despite witnessing a sharp fall in its share of the dial-up (narrowband) Internet market from 2004, SiOL is actually gaining from the leverage it has over the broadband sector. Here, it is capitalising on its parent's nationwide fixed-line telephone network to offer ADSL conections over local fixed lines. The Slovenian communications regulator, the Post and Electronic Communications Agency of the Republic of Slovenia (APEK), claims that the country's telecommunications market was worth SIT204,960 million in 2004 (latest data published by APEK), equating to approximately 3% of Slovenia's gross domestic product (GDP) for the year and less than 1% of total revenues in the EU telecommunications market. This is low when compared to all of the other countries that have recently joined the European Union, especially Bulgaria, Hungary, and Latvia, but is more a reflection of Slovenia's unusually high GDP.
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