Investments in Fiber Optic Networks are Growing

In the first nine months of 2024, 73 million euros were invested in very high-capacity networks (VHCN), representing an increase of nearly 27 percent compared to the same period last year, announced the Croatian Regulatory Authority for Network Activities (HAKOM) on Tuesday.

These investments enabled the growth of the number of VHCN connections to 490,750, which now account for 43 percent of all 1,140,391 broadband internet connections in the fixed network in Croatia. The share of connections with speeds above 100 Mbit/s, regardless of technology, at the end of the third quarter is 45 percent.

Total revenues in the electronic communications market for the first three quarters of this year amounted to 1.36 billion euros, an increase of 7.8 percent compared to the first three quarters of last year. Revenues from mobile network services increased by 7.73 percent to 900 million euros, while revenues from fixed networks increased by 7.87 percent to 464 million euros.

The number of connections on fiber optic technologies in the third quarter increased by 83,897 compared to the same period last year, while the number of connections on copper infrastructure decreased by 52,840. The total number of fiber optic connections reached 323,860.

Revenues from own OTT services increased by 171 percent in the third quarter compared to the previous year, and the number of connections for these services increased by 116 percent, totaling 110,055.

OTT is an abbreviation for Over-the-Top and refers to a range of services that compete with the core services of telecom operators, delivered over the open internet, bypassing the operator’s infrastructure for delivery and billing.

The structure of pay-TV connections has maintained stable shares, with IPTV technology leading at 51.2 percent. Other pay-TV technologies include cable television at 14 percent, satellite at 13 percent, terrestrial pay-TV at 10, while own OTT services have a share of nearly 12 percent. The total number of pay-TV connections, across all types of technology, amounts to 926,288.

The traffic of international calls in national networks increased by 5.7 percent compared to the same period last year, confirming a stable recovery of international mobility among users.