CETIN a.s., (also known as Česká telekomunikační infrastruktura, its former name) is a

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

telecommunications company that is part of

PPF Group PPF Group is an international diversified investment group founded in 1991 in the Czech Republic. PPF Group invests in a variety of sectors, including banking and financial services, telecommunications, media, biotechnology, real estate and indus ...

, an international investment group formerly majority-owned by Czech billionaire

Petr Kellner Petr Kellner (20 May 1964 – 27 March 2021) was a Czech billionaire entrepreneur, the founder and majority shareholder (98.93%) of the PPF Group. At the time of his death, he had an estimated net worth of $17.5 billion, making him the wealthi ...

. The company was created as a result of the separation of O2 Czech Republic a.s. into two companies, following a decision taken at O2 Czech Republic’s general meeting on 28 April 2015. The actual separation took place on 1 June 2015. CETIN, the new company created alongside O2, now runs the fixed-line access network, the mobile access network and international telecommunication services that were previously run by the combined O2 Czech Republic. The CETIN network takes in 65,000 km of optical cables and 20,000,000 km of metallic cable pairs throughout the Czech Republic. It covers 99.6% of the population with a mixture of

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a family of standards to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks, as used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and Mobile broadband modem, mobile broadba ...

UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a 3G mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. UMTS uses Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, wideband code-division multiple access (W-CDMA) radio access technolog ...

LTE LTE may refer to: Science and technology * LTE (telecommunication) (Long-Term Evolution), a mobile telephony standard ** LTE Advanced, an enhancement ** LTE Advanced Pro, a further enhancement * Compaq LTE, a line of laptop computers * Leukotrie ...

and 5G mobile technology by 6,000

base stations Base station (or base radio station, BS) is – according to the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) Radio Regulations (RR) – a " land station in the land mobile service." A base station is called '' node B'' in 3G, '' eNB'' in LT ...

, and SDH, WDM,

Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

and IP technology at fixed locations. On an international level, CETIN owns

PoP Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop! (British group), a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Album ...

(Points of Presence) in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

Bratislava Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

and

Hongkong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

. CETIN is continuously accelerating existing metallic networks through bonding and

vectoring Very high-speed digital subscriber line (VDSL) and very high-speed digital subscriber line 2 (VDSL2) are digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies providing data transmission faster than the earlier standards of asymmetric digital subscriber lin ...

technologies. In addition, the company is also engaged in the construction of new fiber-optic connections to the

fiber-optic An optical fiber, or optical fibre, is a flexible glass or plastic fiber that can transmit light from one end to the other. Such fibers find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at ...

network. The goal is to reach one million connections at 1 Gbps by 2026. PPF Group decided to squeeze out CETIN’s remaining minority shareholders at CETIN’s general meeting on 3 December 2015. The shares owned by these minority shareholders therefore passed to the majority shareholder. As a result, in January 2016, PPF Group completed the acquisition of 100% of the share capital of CETIN. CETIN became the general partner of the Prague Spring (Pražské jaro) music festival in 2016. The company introduced a new feature to the 71st year of the festival in cooperation with Prague Spring – streaming the opening concert online to locations at Kampa Park in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

and also to eight cinemas in the Czech Republic and

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

. In July 2020, the infrastructure and retail parts of the three Telenor-branded operators in

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

, and

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

were separated and to form the CETIN Group, a wholesale operator and provider of active and passive telecommunications infrastructure services in the

Central and Eastern Europe Central and Eastern Europe is a geopolitical term encompassing the countries in Baltic region, Northeast Europe (primarily the Baltic states, Baltics), Central Europe (primarily the Visegrád Group), Eastern Europe, and Southeast Europe (primaril ...

. In November 2020, CETIN signed a five-year cooperation contract to build a 5G mobile network with the Swedish company

Ericsson (), commonly known as Ericsson (), is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Ericsson has been a major contributor to the development of the telecommunications industry and is one ...

, which will upgrade more than 4,000 base stations across CETIN's mobile network through Ericsson Radio System for 5G Standalone (SA) and 5G Non-Standalone (NSA). In October 2021,

investment group PPF agreed to sell a 30% stake in telecommunications infrastructure group CETIN to

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

GIC investment fund.

References

{{reflist

External links

CETIN websitePPF website
Telecommunications companies of the Czech Republic Companies based in Prague Czech brands PPF Group Czech companies established in 2015 Telecommunications companies established in 2015