Telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...

include

radio 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 transmi ...

television 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 advertisin ...

fixed Fixed may refer to: * ''Fixed'' (EP), EP by Nine Inch Nails * ''Fixed'', an upcoming 2D adult animated film directed by Genndy Tartakovsky * Fixed (typeface), a collection of monospace bitmap fonts that is distributed with the X Window System * ...

and mobile telephones, and the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

Radio and television

Radio stations Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio sta ...

: 3 large public radio broadcasters and many private radio stations (2010)."Communications: Bosnia and Herzegovina"
''World Factbook'', U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, 28 January 2014. Retrieved 30 January 2014. *

Television stations A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the ear ...

: 3 public TV broadcasters:

Radio and Television of Bosnia and Herzegovina BHRT (Bosnian-Herzegovinian Radio Television) ''Bosanskohercegovačka radiotelevizija''/ ''Босанскохерцеговачка радиотелевизија'') formerly known as PBSBiH (Public Broadcasting Service of Bosnia and Herzegovina ...

(BHRT), Federation TV operating 2 networks, and

Radio Televizija Republike Srpske Radio Television of Republika Srpska ( Serbian: ''Радио Телевизија Републике Српске'' / Radio Televizija Republike Srpske or RTRS) is the entity-level public broadcaster which operates radio and television services ...

; a local commercial network of 5 TV stations; 3 private, near-national TV stations; and dozens of small independent TV stations (2010). The Communications Regulatory Agency (CRA) is charged with regulating the country's radio and television media. During the Bosnian war, most media became propaganda tools of the authorities, armies, and factions. Since then, efforts have been made—with limited success—to develop media which bridge ethnic boundaries. TV is the chief news source. The most influential broadcasters are the public radio and TV stations operated by the Bosniak-Croat and Serb entities. The

Office of the High Representative The High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, were created in 1995 immediately after the signing of the Dayton Agreement which ended the 1992–1995 Bos ...

(OHR), the leading international civilian agency in Bosnia, oversaw the development of national public broadcasting. The OHR worked to create a non-nationalist, civic media."Bosnia-Hercegovina profile - Media"
''BBC News'', 18 December 2012. Retrieved 30 January 2014.

Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see names in other languages'') is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area including Sarajevo ...

is home to Al-Jazeera Balkans TV, an offshoot of the Qatar-based pan-Arab news network, broadcasting in Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian.

Telephones

The telecommunications sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina is undergoing liberalisation. Up to 2006, there were three licensed fixed telecommunication operators:

BH Telecom BH Telecom is a Bosnian telecommunications company, headquartered in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. History It was established during the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1992 and was the first company in Bosnia and Herzegovina to provide GSM, 3G, ...

, based in

, covering 51% of the population of BiH and most of the territory of the

Federation of BiH The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the two entities within the State of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being Republika Srpska. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of 10 autonomous cantons with their own govern ...

;

Telekom Srpske m:tel a.d. Banja Luka (formerly Telekom Srpske a.d. Banja Luka) is a telecommunications company based in Banja Luka, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The company is owned by Telekom Srbija, and is the second largest telecommunications co ...

, based in

Banja Luka Banja Luka ( sr-Cyrl, Бања Лука, ) or Banjaluka ( sr-Cyrl, Бањалука, ) is the second largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the largest city of Republika Srpska. Banja Luka is also the ''de facto'' capital of this entity. I ...

, covering 34% of the population of BiH, mainly in the territory of

Republica Srpska Republika Srpska ( sr-Cyrl, Република Српска, lit=Serb Republic, also known as Republic of Srpska, ) is one of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is located ...

; and

HT Eronet HT Eronet, doing business as JP Hrvatske telekomunikacije d.d. Mostar, is a telecommunications company in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The company was created on after separating Hrvatska pošta Mostar (HP Mostar) and Hrvatske telekomunikacije (HT). ...

, covering 16% of the population of BiH, mainly in the

. The three companies enjoyed a ''de facto'' monopoly over their operating areas, although they have nationwide licenses for domestic and international calls.AGCOM & CRA, 2008, Overview of the Communications Sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina New competitors, such as Telemach, have entered the marked since the start of its liberalisation in 2007.Tarik Jusić,
Bosnia and Herzegovina
, EJC Media Landscapes The numbers of fixed telephony service subscribers were 849,027 in 2001 and 1,022,475 in 2007. Fixed telephony penetration rates increased from 22.35% (2001) to 26.41% (2007). The mobile telephony sector is highly competitive, as the three main telephone operators compete nationwide with the brands BH Mobile, M:Tel and

ERONET HT Eronet, doing business as JP Hrvatske telekomunikacije d.d. Mostar, is a telecommunications company in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The company was created on after separating Hrvatska pošta Mostar (HP Mostar) and Hrvatske telekomunikacije (HT). ...

. Mobile networks cover 99% of the population and have a 63.29% penetration rate, with 2,450,425 subscribers in 2007, doubling from 2004. All three mobile operators operate on 4G+ network. The TLC operators are still mainly state-owned and there is strong resistance to privatisation, with 90% of BH Telecom and 50.1% of HT Mostar owned by the Federation of BiH. In Republika Srpska, Telekom Srpska was privatised and is now mainly (65%) owned by

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 three main TLC operators have strong links to political parties. In 2003, an

OHR ''Ohr'' ("Light" he, אור; plural: ''Ohros/Ohrot'' "Lights" ) is a central Kabbalistic term in the Jewish mystical tradition. The analogy of physical light is used as a way of describing metaphysical Divine emanations. ''Shefa'' ("Flow" an ...

-mandated audit revealed that BH Telekom, RS Telekom and HT Mostar suffered substantial misure of funds, corruption and mismanagement, with a total loss of USD 57 million in 2002. Pressure for reform was raised by the public revelation of high salaries and financial support to political parties. This led to the sacking of the board of Bosniak-controlled BH Telekom in 2003. Yet, telecom companies continued being used as cash-machines by Bosnian political parties. In 2010, a U.S. cable defined Eronet and HT Mostar as

HDZ BiH The Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina ( hr, Hrvatska demokratska zajednica Bosne i Hercegovine or HDZ BiH) is a Christian democratic, nationalist political party in Bosnia and Herzegovina, representing the Croats of Bosnia and ...

's "traditional cash cow", noting how "As

Federation A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government ( federalism). In a federation, the self-govern ...

Minister of Finance in 1999, Covic helped arrange the transfer of Eronet to three private companies owned by HDZ-BiH interests. tipePrlic, as HT Mostar's General Manager, challenged the privatization in court and won, arguing that the Federation government had not authorized it. Covic has fought Prlic's reappointment ever since." The telecommunications market is regulated by the Communications Regulatory Agency, which also regulates broadcasting and Internet sectors. * Calling code: +387 * Total fixed lines: 583,729 lines (2019) ** 356,262 analog fixed lines (2019) ** 29,840

ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the digitalised circuits of the public switched telephone network. Work ...

B channels (2019) ** 13,341 Cellular local loop (CLL) subscriptions (2019) ** 183,425

Voice over IP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...

subscriptions (2019) ** 861

public phones A payphone (alternative spelling: pay phone) is typically a coin-operated public telephone, often located in a telephone booth or in high-traffic outdoor areas, with prepayment by inserting money (usually coins) or by billing a credit or debit ...

: (2019) * Residential fixed lines: 447,010 (2019) * Business fixed lines: 135,858 (2019) * Total mobile cellular: 3.7 million active subscriptions (2019) ** 2.7 million prepaid mobile cellular subscriptions (2019) ** 969,578

postpaid The postpaid mobile phone is a mobile phone for which service is provided by a prior arrangement with a mobile network operator. The user in this situation is billed after the fact according to their use of mobile services at the end of each mon ...

mobile cellular subscriptions (2019) * Mobile cellular penetration: ** 95.0% of the population covered by 3G mobile networks (2019) ** 99.0% of the population covered by

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such ...

mobile networks (2019) * Short Message Service: 455.7 million SMS messages sent (2019) * Multimedia Messaging Service: 1.1 million MMS messages sent (2019) * Service providers: ** 12 alternative fixed-line operators (2019)

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 ...

.ba .ba is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a countr ...

** the ''Univerzitetski tele-informatički centar'' (UTIC, University Tele-Informatics Centre) at the

University of Sarajevo The University of Sarajevo ( Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian: ''Univerzitet u Sarajevu'' / Sveučilište u Sarajevu / Универзитет у Сарајеву) is a public university located in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is the largest ...

is the .ba domain administrator.English translation
* Fixed Internet: 797,893 subscriptions (2021) ** Internet Users: 3,374,094 (95.55% of the population) (2021) ** 0 dial-up subscriptions (2021) ** 797,893

broadband In telecommunications, broadband is wide bandwidth data transmission which transports multiple signals at a wide range of frequencies and Internet traffic types, that enables messages to be sent simultaneously, used in fast internet connections. ...

subscriptions (2021) *** 416,021 digital subscriber line subscriptions (2021) *** 381,872 cable modem subscriptions (2021) *** 60,936

fixed wireless access Wireless local loop (WLL), is the use of a wireless communications link as the " last mile / first mile" connection for delivering plain old telephone service (POTS) or Internet access (marketed under the term "broadband") to telecommunications ...

(FWA) subscriptions (2019) *** 980 leased line subscriptions (2019) *** 30,231 fibre to the home (FTTH) subscriptions (2019) *** 287 other fixed broadband subscriptions (2019) * Internet hosts: 155,252 hosts, 77th in the world *

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 privat ...

s (ISPs): 65 (2019)

Internet censorship and surveillance

There are no government restrictions on access to the Internet or reports that the government monitors

e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

or Internet

chat rooms The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...

."Bosnia and Herzegovina"
''Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012'', Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State, 22 March 2013. Retrieved 30 January 2014. The Press Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina is the organization responsible for self-regulation of online and print media content. In 2012 the Press Council considered 176 complaints alleging inaccurate or libelous reporting by print and online media (103 for print and 73 for online media), accepting 35 as valid and rejecting 19 as unfounded. The law provides for freedom of speech and

press Press may refer to: Media * Print media or news media, commonly called "the press" * Printing press, commonly called "the press" * Press (newspaper), a list of newspapers * Press TV, an Iranian television network People * Press (surname), a fam ...

; however, the government does not always respect press freedom in practice. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina law prohibits hate speech. The Republika Srpska law does not specifically proscribe hate speech, although the law prohibits causing ethnic, racial, or religious hatred. Independent analysts note a continuing tendency of politicians and other leaders to label unwanted criticism as hate speech. The law prohibits arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home, or correspondence, and the government generally respects these prohibitions in practice.

Public domain material

* This article incorporates material from websites or documents of the Communications Regulatory Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (''Regulatorna agencija za komunikacije Bosne i Hercegovine''
"2012 editions"
* *

References

External links

Communications Regulatory Agency (CRA) of Bosnia and Herzegovina

NIC.ba
, .ba domain registrar {{Bosnia and Herzegovina topics2, state=collapsed Internet in Bosnia and Herzegovina