CRONET GSM STATION DISCOVERED NEAR SARAJEVO - WEEKLY

( Editorial: --> 4126 ) SARAJEVO, 17 Aug (Hina) - A small CRONET GSM station was recently set up on a post tower on Mt Trebevic near Sarajevo enabling the usage of phones with the Croatian SIM card on the territory of Sarajevo, the Sarajevo weekly "Slobodna Bosna" reports. The latest issue of the weekly calls this an illegal act encroaching on the sovereignty of Bosnia-Herzegovina and recalls that the Sarajevo police had last year confiscated a similar CRONET station set up on a private house in central Sarajevo. The confiscated equipment, worth US $300,000, is still in the Bosnian Post and Telecommunications (PTT BiH) storehouses but it is not used since it is not compatible with Ericsson technology used by the mobile phone system in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The CRONET station discovered on Mt Trebevic is on the Bosnian Serb territory. Emin Skopljak, head of the BH Foreign Trade Ministry Telecommunications Board, told "Slobodna Bosna" that the Board's control and measurement centre had discovered the station at the beginning of this month and there was no doubt that its equipment belonged to CRONET system. The station was connected with a transmitter near Kiseljak and practically covered the whole territory of the Bosnian capital with the Croatian Post and Telecommunications (HPT) signal, Skopljak said. Although it allows the connection of indefinite number of users to the Croatian GSM network, the capacity of the station is small and allows only 28 simultaneous calls, the Sarajevo weekly claims. According to the BH Telecommunications Board, there are about 30 CRONET stations on the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, mostly on the Croat territories. The stations are controlled by the ERONET company from Mostar. The Croatian and Bosnian posts and telecommunications have not regulated their relations nor have they signed roaming agreements which would enable unimpeded usage of mobile phones regardless of which network the subscriber is using. (hina) rml 171356 MET aug 98