Overview of Wireline FTTH-Based Access Technologies in the Kosovan Telecommunication Market

This paper provides an overview of the existing wireline fiber-based access technologies in the Republic of Kosovo. In addition, the market share is presented, as well as the impact that competition, government and the regulatory authority have on Kosovo's wireline market. In the Kosovo market there are three main players, followed by some local internet service providers. Even though copper-based networks, such as twisted-pair and coaxial cable networks, dominate Kosovo's wireline access topology, fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) is not new to Kosovo's market. However, its deployment has been very limited and the expansion of FTTH topology until the past couple of years only involved the connection of business clients. Kosovo operators have been deploying the FTTH architecture mostly in the form of point-to-point (P2P) solutions for business clients for more than a decade, and the number of customers was very limited. In the past three years, two of the main operators (IPKO Telecommunication and Telekomi i Kosoves) have been more active with the deployment of the FTTH architecture in the form of the point-to-multipoint (P2MP) solution, with gigabit passive optical network (GPON) technology being the preferred architecture.