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Telecommunications in Slovakia includes fixed and mobile telephones, radio, television, and the Internet.

Telephone

Fixed lines

Slovak Telecom Inc. (former Slovenské Telekomunikácie, a.s.) was privatised on 18 July 2000. The 51% package of shares was purchased by the German Deutsche Telecom AG for 1 bln. EUR (more than 44 bln. SKK at that time). The outstanding 49% of the shares are still owned by the Slovak government through the Department of Transport, Construction and Regional Development of the Slovak Republic (34%) and the National Property Fund (15%). Slovak Telecom was rebranded to T-Com in the year 2003. In 2010 there were more than 100 companies licensed to provide public fixed line telephone service, although many of these do not offer commercial service to the wider public. The most notable country-wide providers are T-Com, Orange, Dial Telecom, SWAN and UPC. Several regional providers also operate in the market. Many of these offer triple-play services consisting of a fixed line service, broadband internet access and access to television programmes. The number of triple-play customers has doubled since the service was introduced and currently peaks at 78,049 subscribers.

Due to strong penetration of the Slovak market by mobile phones, the fixed lines sector has decreased dramatically in recent years. While there were 1,655,380 fixed lines in use in 1999, their number decreased by 60% to 994,421 in 2010.

  • Density: 18.31 lines per 100 inhabitants (2010).
  • Lines connected to digital exchanges: 100% (2010).
  • Density: 105.12 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (2010).
  • Internet hosts: 1.4 million, 41st in the world (2012).

The constitution and the law provide for freedom of speech and press. While the government mostly respects these rights in practice, in some instances, it limits these rights to impede criticism and limit actions of groups it considers extremist. The law prohibits the defamation of nationalities, punishable by up to three years in prison, and denial of the Holocaust, which carries a sentence of six months to three years in prison. Criminal penalties for defamation are rarely used. The constitution and the law prohibit arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home, or correspondence and the government generally respects these prohibitions in practice. Police must present a warrant before conducting a search or within 24 hours afterwards.

See also

  • Telephone numbers in Slovakia
  • Piano Media, a subscription-based payment system enabling paid content and services on Slovak media websites.

Notes

References

  • Department of Transport, Construction and Regional Development of the Slovak Republic
  • Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of the Slovak Republic
  • SK-NIC, Slovak TLD registry
  • Slovak Internet Exchange (SIX)