United Group creates biggest fibre network in Southeast Europe
JUNE 5, 2024 13.59 EUROPE/LONDON BY JULIAN CLOVER

United Group is bringing together its fibre assets under a single brand.

A newly established company in Slovenia will be joined by assets in Bulgaria and Slovenia later this year. It follows the successful establishment of United Fiber in Greece in 2021.

United Fiber owns 60,000 kilometres of backbone and metro network across the four markets that connect Europe with the Middle East and Asia.

Zeljko Batistic, Vice President Technology United Group said that two decades after the company launching in Serbia, it had become the largest optical network in South East Europe. “By bundling our investment and roll-out activities into United Fiber, we will be able to further expand our activities, create strong synergies, and bring our investment capabilities to the next level.”

United Fiber Greece has been key to the deployment strategy. It has a fibre-to-the-home penetration of 20% in the country. 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, that is planned to be completed in 2025, will reinforce the existing interconnections with Turkey and the Middle East, strengthening the existing interconnection with Bulgaria, and facilitate plans for the Aegean submarine cable between Greece and Turkey.