Slovakia’s Telecommunications Office (TU SR) permitted Telefonica O2 Slovakia to test mobile data services over 2600MHz Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology in a public network in the Banska Bystrica area until 31 July 2010.

The regulator said that it had already given similar authorisation to Orange Slovakia to carry out 2600MHz LTE testing, whilst O2 had been told to suspend 2600MHz testing in certain other areas because of possible interference with existing MMDS broadcasting systems, which are due for frequency reallocation at the end of 2011. As reported by CommsUpdate earlier this month, O2 announced it would be running the 4G tests in Slovakia with technology partner Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), with whom it recently gave a live demonstration of LTE-based mobile broadband connections at the Mobile World Conference 2010 in Barcelona.

In other Slovakian news, on 15 March TU SR launched tenders for the allocation of frequencies in the 10GHz spectrum band in seven localities of the country, intended to support the development of broadband fixed wireless access (BFWA).