Telecommunications and media company Bite Group has announced plans to enter the Estonian communications market, where it already provides television services.
Bite plans to offer Estonian consumers fixed, mobile internet and other services in the future. The company says, however, that it will only be able to enter the Estonian communications market if the Estonian frequency auction allocating 5G licenses has room for the group.
When and if it receives a 5G license in Estonia, Bite has suggested that it might also consider investing in the country’s broadband telecommunications companies through acquisitions. The 5G communication frequencies auction in Estonia is expected to take place in April this year.
At present Bite Group owns Estonia’s TV3 television channel and the online video streaming platform Go3, which also operates in Estonia. Bite is also a leading player in the telecommunications and media space in Lithuania and Latvia.
And speaking of Lithuania, the Lithuanian Supreme Administrative Court has apparently upheld an appeal from Telia Lithuania against the decision by the country’s regulator to allow the spectrum used by the operator Telecentras for its MEZON broadband services to transfer to Bite Group. A new hearing is now likely.
The news that Lithuanian mobile operator Bite had completed its acquisition of MEZON, the retail broadband and IPTV business of state-owned Lithuanian Radio and Television Centre (aka Telecentras), was made public earlier this year.
Bite Group, which has about three million customers and 3,000 employees in the Baltic countries, is controlled by Providence Equity Partners LLC – the American global private equity investment firm focused on media, communications, education and information investments.
