Telecommunications development in Slovenia

This paper provides an overview of the development of telecommunications in Slovenia. Major systems, networks and services are briefly considered. The combination of its own generic research and the critical mass of knowledge had and still has a very positive influence on the development of telecommunications. Therefore, indicators of Slovenian telecommunications are very good. We propose a two-level network architecture consisting of a simplified data forwarding plane and service control plane. The data forwarding plane uses optical networks upgraded with IP/MPLS technology. The service control plane is mostly implemented in edge devices, in the form of gateways and servers. Edge devices also act as bridges between different access networks and the high speed core network. Future technological development and the proposed role of Slovenia as a regional telecommunications hub are presented.