OTE

The initiative is a collaborative effort between OTE and the Ministry of Culture

Greece's Culture Ministry on Monday signed an agreement with Cosmote, the mobile phone unit of the country's largest telecom company OTE, to expand free WiF access to the visitors of the most prominent archaeological sites and museums around the country.

The program started several years ago but the new deal extends broadband coverage to 25 sites and museums, from the current 14.

Greece's telecoms watchdog, the Hellenic Telecommunications and Post Commission (EETT), on Wednesday signed contracts with the country's three major telecoms providers Cosmote, Vodafone and Wind for the use of the 700MHz, 2GHz, 3400-3800 MHz and 26 GHz radio frequency band widths, which pave the way for a 5G network.

Owners of 5G-compatible portable devices, in Athens, Thessaloniki and other cities with the necessary antenna networks, have already noticed an increase in connection speeds and significantly shorter internet response times.

OTE said on Thursday it had launched its 5G services in Athens and other big cities. The group, which is 46% owned and managed by Deutsche Telekom, said that its mobile business, Cosmote, was the first to provide its subscribers with 5G offerings in Athens, Thessaloniki and other cities at speeds exceeding 1 gigabit per second.

Greece has raised 372.26 million euros ($453.78 million) from granting rights for the use of different bands for the development of 5G networks, its telecoms regulator (EETT) said on Wednesday.

Wednesday sees the start of the state auction of bandwidth for the development of fifth-generation telecommunication networks (5G) in Greece, but the state-of-the-art services to subscribers will also come at an added cost.

Thursday's session on the Athens Stock Exchange was even more subdued than recent days, if that is possible.

In the end, the general index, which had been showing mild losses throughout, tipped over into positive territory, closing at 637.27 points, a gain of 0.36%. Late gains in OTE Telecom were the main reason.

Turnover was €23.61 million on volume of 16,373,894 shares.

The announcements by the Competition Commission and the study by Finnish company Rewheel regarding the high charges and "closed oligopoly" conditions in the Greek telecommunications market have generated major reactions both in the market and on a political level.

OTE telecom will be implementing two new voluntary redundancy programs at the end of the month.
The programs concern more than 400 employees across the various departments and subsidiaries of the group and will cost a total of 55 million euros, or about €130,000 per departing employee on average.