4 Jul 2011Czech Republic Broadband Overview

Czech telecom market was liberalised in January 2001 and price deregulation was completed in 2002 with call-by-call carrier selection, carrier pre-selection and number portability. However, due to lack of independence, the regulator was slow in reducing the incumbent’s monopolistic power in the ADSL market, which put the country behind others in the region in terms of broadband deployment. In 2004, the Czech regulator finally imposed an obligation on the incumbent to interconnect its network with alternative operators for the purpose of providing alternative ADSL services, and defined maximum prices for wholesale ADSL resale services.

One of the present trends in the Czech market is the continuing migration of traffic generated in the fixed line networks to mobile networks and a steady decline in the number of fixed lines. However in 2009 the rate of decline has been slowing down. At the same time, the number of broadband Internet users has been growing. However, this is at a slower rate compared with previous periods.

There are significant differences in broadband coverage between urban and rural areas as well as between the capital and regions. However, Brno and South Moravia are ahead of Prague in this respect. One of the reasons is the difficulties associated with constructing broadband infrastructure in old areas of Prague. Also, technical universities in Brno educate a large number of IT specialists that choose to stay in the region.