ABOUT US

CABLE OPERATORS ASSOCIATION OF SERBIA

Business Association of Serbian Cable Operators was founded on 18th July 2001. It was founded by nineteen companies dealing in designing, building and maintenance of cable distribution systems, as a professional organization gathering companies dealing in designing, building and maintenance of cable distribution systems.

In the past years, after reviewing work and results of the association, it was joined by more professional companies. Number of members increased, reaching forty at the moment.

The companies in this branch are still interested in joining work of the association, which implies observance of the association’s Articles of Association, and meeting established criteria for becoming a member of the association.

Now the activities of the association reflects the activities of its members, such as designing, building and maintenance of cable distribution systems used for broadcasting, i.e. redistribution of media content of electronic media, internet providing, and other telecommunication services.

  1. Goals of the association were set by its Founding Agreement, being the following:
  2. Joint and coordinated appearance in the local and international markets;
  3. Compliance of activities with the purpose of providing its services;
  4. Realization of membership in international professional organizations;
  5. Undertaking measures in order to provide high-quality services of the cable distribution systems;
  6. Starting initiatives for normative stipulation of all regulations in the subject business area.

The task of the association is to achieve given tasks so as to provide high-quality services in order to satisfy users’ needs. This will be achieved primarily through the best-quality technical solutions enabling top-quality reception of video and sound through the cable distribution system. Members of the association provide services for as much as 300,000 households throughout the country.

If one assumes that one household has 4 members on the average, members of the association provide that 1,200,000 citizens watch local and foreign TV programmes, use the Internet, and with the prospect of using the fixed telephony as well.

The association’s primary interest is that its members provide reception and redistribution of the best-quality local and foreign programme to its users. The association is holding negotiations with copyright owners for foreign TV and radio channels whose programmes are broadcasted through the cable systems, in order to provide the best-quality translations of shows and movies into Serbian and to achieve the most favourable prices for programme packages.

This means that the association will negotiate to provide basic requirements, and that the members will freely conclude agreements with programme owners of their own choice. the issue of pricing is very important, because each agreement concluded by cable operators with programme owners will directly affect the amount of distributor’s expenses, thus affecting the price of monthly maintenance – subscription– for the user.

The association’s priority objective is to participate actively in drafting regulations in the area of cable distribution systems. The association expects from the competent state institutions, ministries, regulatory bodies, agencies and institutes to stipulate minimal requirements biding for all companies in the telecommunications area, thus creating favourable environment for a market competition of equals. Quality of services will practically be decisive for the citizens, as the factor based on which they will decide on selection of the operator for their apartment, house, building.

Only the monopoly-free market can guarantee quality of services.

At the time when the real information at the right time and at the right place is a mandatory factor in lives and business of both individuals and companies in Serbia, the association deems it as its obligation to enable the following services through business activities of its members: analogue and digital television, internet telephony, telemetry, video surveillance etc, that would satisfy high standards of the Serbian citizens.