Beginning with the registration of a newly established company in Slovenia in March 2024, which will be followed by Bulgaria and Croatia by the end of this year, the Group says it will focus on accelerating and strengthening its investment in its geolocation.
Its modern broadband infrastructure connects Europe with the Middle East and Asia, responding to the high demand for transit through the Group’s core markets.
Zeljko Batistić, vice president of technology at United Group said: “At United Group we know how to build and roll out state-of-the-art fixed infrastructure.
“In 2000 we started fully greenfield in Serbia and two decades later we became the largest optical network in Southeast Europe. In the four EU countries Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia alone, the United Group owns 60.000 km of backbone and metro network.
United Group says it is currently executing the plan of delivering 475,000 new FTTH homes in 2024.
United Fiber Greece has been essential in implementing the Group’s infrastructure deployment strategy, the company said in a release.
The company has been able to accelerate its impact in Greece with 20% fibre-to-the-home penetration on its own network (vs. 8% national).
In Bulgaria, the Group has the largest FTTH network in the country reaching 50% of all households with the plan to expand to 67% by 2028.
In Croatia around 80,000 households are added per year with the plan to reach 40% of all households by 2028. In Slovenia, the Group owns the second largest gbps-enabled network covering around 50% of the total households in the country.
A new infrastructure project by United Fiber will deploy a terrestrial cable connecting Athens and Thessaloniki and linking Southeast Europe with key hotspots in Western Europe.
The project is planned to be completed in 2025 and will reinforce existing interconnections with Turkey and the Middle East, strengthening existing connections with Bulgaria and facilitating plans for the Aegan submarine cable between Greece and Turkey.
United Group’s entire infrastructure wholesale activities including voice, data, mobile and roaming are managed by UGI. UGI is also in charge of the commercialisation of Athens – Thessaloniki.
Paolo Ficini, CEO of UGI said: “By creating this completely new route, United Group tangibly demonstrates its commitment to be the largest fibre network provider in Southeastern Europe, enhancing competitiveness, creating new investment opportunities, and accelerating the digital transformation of all countries involved.
“The project meets the increasing demand coming from the significant investment in new data centres in the region, as well as in new submarine cables landing in Greece in the Southern border.”
