A1 Hrvatska (Vipnet)

Company Overview

A1 Hrvatska is the second largest mobile carrier operating in Croatia. The company began commercial operations in July 1999 as the first private mobile carrier in the country. Vipnet has operated as a subsidiary of Telekom Austria Group since its inception. In June 2018 the company announced that it would change name from Vipnet to A1 Hrvatska, to reflect branding of its parent entity.

The company provides 2G GSM services over the 900 and 1800 MHz bands, and launched 3G UMTS over B1 (2100 MHz) in April 2006, the first carrier to do so in Croatia. Vipnet upgraded its 3G service to DC-HSPA+ in December 2010.

On the same day as competitor T-Hrvatski Telekom, Vipnet launched its 4G LTE service over B3 (1800 MHz) in March 2012. Following a spectrum auction in October 2012 Vipnet secured a 10 MHz licence in the 800 MHz band, and subsequently launched a second LTE carrier over B20 (800 MHz). LTE-A has been deployed, marketed as 4G+ which involved 2C aggregation of B3 and B20, advertising peak data rates up to 225 Mbps. The network was further enhanced in June 2017 to provide peak DL data rates up to 300 Mbps, which is understood to be using 15+15 MHz 2CC CA.

A1 Hrvatska 5G

After being awarded a temporary operating licence by Hrvatske regulatorne agencije za mrežne djelatnosti (HAKOM), A1 Croatia (then Vipnet) demonstrated 5G speeds of 700 Mbps using an n78 (3500 MHz) carrier.

A1 Croatia IoT

A1 launched an NB-IoT network in April 2019 as part of its A1 Digital IoT platform. The network leverages the company's existing B20 (800 MHz) LTE carrier.