"Telekom Srbija": Another 500,000 ADSL connections prior to end of year 2008

By installing 500,000 ADSL ports, "Telekom Srbije" will 2.5 times increase number of connections for fast internet. "In that way, the problem of connection to broadband internet will be solved", said Ranko Ilić, Manager of Sector for Internet Services within "Telekom Srbije" yesterday (December 17, 2007) at the roundtable on development of broadband internet. He said that 60m EUR would be invested in that project.

Jovan Radulović, President of ADministrative Board of Republic Telecommunications Agency (RATEL), which was one of the organizers of the roundtable, reminded that RATEL would keep providing equal business terms in the future, but through competition that is manifested through introduction of new technologies, such as wireless Wimax access or DHT and CDMR. Radulović said that the suggestions for allotment of licenses in these fields would be submitted in 2008.

- If we want to get closer to European Union, we have to drastically increase availability of Internet to companies and inviduals. In order to solve that problem, we have to develop infrastructure through liberalization of market conditions for all participants, creation of interesting contents for Internet through development of services in the government institutions and by educating citizens, as well as through work on Internet during school education - Milenko Cvetinović, State Secretary in the Ministry of Telecommunications and IT Society, pointed out at the roundtable on broadband internet development.

According to the data provided by the Statistics Institute, internet in Serbia is used by 26.3% of households, most of which use modem connection (73.4%), WAP and GPRS are used by 16.1%, while only 12.1% of households use ADSL. Number of internet users grew by 3% against year 2006. More than 1,700,000 people have been using internet in the past three months and over 850,000 people uses internet every day.