NRA planning 5G auction in 2024

The Serbian government is planning to auction spectrum for 5G services in 2024, Serbian IT Minister Mihailo Jovanovic announced at the opening of the TELFOR conference this week. The minister added that, alongside preparations for the auction, the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications (Ministarstva informisanja i telekomunikacija, MIT) is working on related measures to ensure a successful transition to 5G. These include the removal of barriers to the construction of base stations and the deployment of fibre infrastructure in rural areas, which the minister said were ‘necessary for the full potential of 5G technology to be realised within a reasonable time [and] available to everyone’. Through its broadband infrastructure construction project, the MIT is aiming to ensure that 99% of Serbian households have access to advanced broadband networks, with the minister claiming that even the ‘most remote villages’ will have access to download speeds of over 100Mbps.