Telecommunication in Serbia is an important economic sector, accounting for 4.7% of country's
GDP
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is often ...
in 2015.
Telephony
*
Fixed-line telephones: 81% of households (2016)
*
Telephone - fixed lines in use: 2.55 million, 36% penetration rate (2016)
*
Telephone - mobile cellular: 9.09 million, 128% penetration rate (2016)
*
International - country code: 381
*
International - satellite earth station: 1
Intelsat
Intelsat S.A. (formerly INTEL-SAT, INTELSAT, Intelsat) is a multinational satellite services provider with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg and administrative headquarters in Tysons Corner, Virginia, United States. Originally formed as In ...
(Atlantic Ocean)
Fixed telephony
Serbia has a developed and efficient telephone network infrastructure. Domestic line system is 100% digital, with digital cable trunk line connecting switching centers. A drop in fixed-line connections in the last decade has been more than offset by a sharp increase in mobile-cellular telephone use.
Telekom Srbija
Telekom Srbija a.d. Beograd is a Serbian state-owned telecommunications operator. It was founded in May 1997 as a joint-stock company, by spinning off the telecommunications business from PTT Srbija (present-day „ Pošta Srbije"). In April 201 ...
, the former state monopoly, is the predominant player in landline telephony with 93.8% of market share. Since the liberalization of the telecommunications market in 2013, Telekom Srbija has been very slowly losing market share to 16 other telecom operators, of which the most significant ones include
SBB and Orion Telekom.
Mobile telephony
Serbia currently has three mobile networks,
Telekom Srbija
Telekom Srbija a.d. Beograd is a Serbian state-owned telecommunications operator. It was founded in May 1997 as a joint-stock company, by spinning off the telecommunications business from PTT Srbija (present-day „ Pošta Srbije"). In April 201 ...
,
Yettel, and
A1, all of which are licensed for 2G GSM, 3G UMTS, and 4G LTE. The largest mobile operator is
Telekom Srbija
Telekom Srbija a.d. Beograd is a Serbian state-owned telecommunications operator. It was founded in May 1997 as a joint-stock company, by spinning off the telecommunications business from PTT Srbija (present-day „ Pošta Srbije"). In April 201 ...
, marketed as ''mts'', with 46.8% market share, followed by
Yettel with 31.2% and
A1 with 22% market share. In addition,
SBB gained
mobile virtual network operator
A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which it provides services to its customers. An MVNO enters into a business agreement with a mobil ...
licence in 2013 but is still not offering services.
Radio and television
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Radios
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitt ...
(2016): 75.7% of households
*
Radio broadcast stations: 247 (including six national stations, 34 regional stations, and 207 local stations)
*
Televisions
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, e ...
(2016): 97.8% of households
*
Television broadcast stations: 122 (including seven national stations, 26 regional stations, and 89 local stations)
Free-to-air terrestrial television
Digital television transition
The digital television transition, also called the digital switchover (DSO), the analogue switch/sign-off (ASO), the digital migration, or the analogue shutdown, is the process in which older analogue television broadcasting technology is conv ...
has been completed in 2015 with MPEG-4 compression standard and
DVB-T2
DVB-T2 is an abbreviation for "Digital Video Broadcasting – Second Generation Terrestrial"; it is the extension of the television standard DVB-T, issued by the consortium DVB, devised for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial telev ...
standard for signal transmission.
Pay television
Some 67% of households are provided with
pay television services (i.e. 38.7% cable television, 16.9% IPTV, and 10.4% satellite). There are 90 pay television operators (cable, IPTV, DTH), largest of which are
SBB (mainly cable) with 48% market share,
Telekom Srbija
Telekom Srbija a.d. Beograd is a Serbian state-owned telecommunications operator. It was founded in May 1997 as a joint-stock company, by spinning off the telecommunications business from PTT Srbija (present-day „ Pošta Srbije"). In April 201 ...
(''mts TV'') with 25%, followed by
PoštaNet with 5%, and Ikom and Kopernikus with 4% and 3%, respectively.
IT Industry
The Serbian
IT industry
Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system ( ...
is rapidly growing and changing pace. In 2018, IT services exports reached $1.3 billion. With 6,924 companies in the IT sector (), Belgrade is one of the
information technology
Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (I ...
centers in this part of Europe, with strong growth.
The
Microsoft Development Center in Belgrade was, at the time of its establishment, the fifth such center in the world. Many world IT companies choose Belgrade as regional or European center such as
Asus,
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
,
Dell
Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies.
Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
,
Huawei
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various smar ...
,
NCR,
Ubisoft
Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include '' Assassin's Creed'', ''Far Cry'', '' ...
etc. These companies have taken advantage of Serbia's large pool of engineers and relatively low wages.
Large investments by global tech companies like
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
, typical of the 2000s, are being eclipsed by a growing number of domestic startups which obtain funding from domestic and international investors. What brought companies like Microsoft in the first place was a large pool of talented engineers and mathematicians.
In just the first quarter of 2016, more than US$65 million has been raised by Serbian startups including $45 million for Seven Bridges (a
Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combi ...
firm) and $14 million for Vast (a
data analysis
Data analysis is a process of inspecting, cleansing, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions, and supporting decision-making. Data analysis has multiple facets and approaches, enco ...
firm). One of the most successful startups have been
Nordeus
Nordeus is a Serbian mobile game developer headquartered in New Belgrade. The studio's debut game is Top Eleven Football Manager, a free-to-play social football management simulation game.
In 2013, the game reached the top of the grossing ch ...
which was founded in
Belgrade
Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...
in 2010 and is one of Europe's fastest-growing companies in the field of
computer games
A personal computer game, also known as a PC game or computer game, is a type of video game played on a personal computer (PC) rather than a video game console or arcade machine. Its defining characteristics include: more diverse and user-deter ...
(the developer of
Top Eleven Football Manager
''Top Eleven'' is a football manager simulation developed and published by Nordeus in May 2010, and is available on both Google Play Store and the App Store.
Overview
The game can also be played on Facebook and it allows players to play agains ...
, a game played by over 20 million people).
Internet
*
Top-level domain
A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...
s:
.rs
.rs is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Serbia. The domain name registry that operates it is the Serbian National Internet Domain Registry (RNIDS). The letters ''rs'' stand for '/Република Србија (Republic of ...
and
.срб
(romanized as ''.srb''; abbreviation of sr, Србија/) is the Internationalised (Cyrillic) Internet country code top-level domain ( IDN ccTLD) for Serbia. It has been active since May 3, 2011.
The Serbian National Internet Domain Registry ...
(Cyrillic)
* Internet users: 5.1 million, 72.4% of the population (2016)
* Fixed internet access: 1.45 million households, 58% of households (2016)
** Fixed internet access by type (2016):
***
xDSL
Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric di ...
: 51.8%
***
Cable
Cable may refer to:
Mechanical
* Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof
* Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...
: 38.9%
***
Wireless
Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...
: 6%
***
FTTx
Fiber to the ''x'' (FTTX; also spelled "fibre") or fiber in the loop is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber to provide all or part of the local loop used for last mile telecommunications. As fiber op ...
: 3.3%
*
Internet hosts
A network host is a computer or other device connected to a computer network. A host may work as a Server (computing), server offering information resources, services, and applications to users or other hosts on the network. Hosts are assigned at ...
: 1.1 million (2012)
*
Internet Service Provider
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...
s (ISPs): 214 (2016)
** Fixed internet service providers (2016):
[http://www.ratel.rs/upload/documents/Pregled_trzista/Pregled%20trzista%202016.pdf ]
***
Telekom Srbija
Telekom Srbija a.d. Beograd is a Serbian state-owned telecommunications operator. It was founded in May 1997 as a joint-stock company, by spinning off the telecommunications business from PTT Srbija (present-day „ Pošta Srbije"). In April 201 ...
(xDSL): 45.9% market share
***
SBB (cable): 25.7%
*** Ikom (cable): 3.8%
*** Orion Telekom (xDSL): 3.4%
*** Kopernikus (cable): 2.7%
***
Radijus Vektor
Radijus Vektor (full legal name: ''Radijus Vektor d.o.o.'') is a Serbian company providing cable television and high-speed Internet, headquartered in Belgrade, Serbia.
Radijus Vektor Postao Supernova
History
Radijus Vektor was established on 25 ...
(cable): 2.1%
*** Sat-Trakt (cable): 2%
***
PoštaNet (xDSL, cable): 1.9%
***
EUnet
EUnet was a very loose collaboration of individual European UNIX sites in the 1980s that evolved into the fully commercial entity EUnet International Ltd in 1996. It was sold to Qwest in 1998. EUnet played a decisive role in the adoption of TCP/IP ...
(xDSL): 1.6%
*** BeotelNet (xDSL): 1.5%
*** Other: 9.3%
See also
*
Telekom Srbija
Telekom Srbija a.d. Beograd is a Serbian state-owned telecommunications operator. It was founded in May 1997 as a joint-stock company, by spinning off the telecommunications business from PTT Srbija (present-day „ Pošta Srbije"). In April 201 ...
*
Telenor
Telenor ASA ( or ) is a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company headquartered at Fornebu in Bærum, close to Oslo. It is one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications companies with operations worldwide, ...
*
A1
*
SBB
*
PoštaNet
*
Serbian Telecommunication Agency
References
External links
Serbian Telecommunication Agency (en)Telecommunications Market of Serbia for 2016at ratel.rs
* EJC Media Landscapes
Serbia #Telecommunications
{{DEFAULTSORT:Telecommunications In Serbia