Bulgaria - Key Statistics, Telecom Market and Regulatory Overviews

Synopsis

Bulgaria possesses an evolving telecoms market that reflects the general economy; adoption of EU regulatory principles has created a stable regulatory environment, attracting much foreign investment. The incumbent has been privatised and the liberalised market has attracted new market entrants although the incumbent remains the dominant fixed-line market player. Competition and the trend of fixed mobile substitution have resulted in fixed-line operators focusing on broadband and related services, in turn driving network deployments. This report provides an overview of Bulgaria’s growing fixed-line telecom market in 2011, and includes information on regulatory developments, major operators and fixed-line networks, as well as a variety of statistics and data.

Key developments:

Vivacom reports 19% fall in overall revenue for Q1 2011; Oger telecom takes controlling interest in Vivacom; MobilTel expects to cover one million households with fixed network by end-2011; operator data to Q1 2011.

Companies covered in this report include:

Vivacom, Orbitel, Vestitel, MobilTel.

Table of Contents

• 1. Synopsis
• 2. Key statistics
• 3. Telecommunications market
  • 3.1 Overview of Bulgaria’s telecom market
• 4. Regulatory environment
  • 4.1 History
    • 4.1.1 Revised NFR
  • 4.2 Regulatory authority
    • 4.2.1 Communications Regulation Commission (CRC)
  • 4.3 Telecom sector liberalisation in Bulgaria
    • 4.3.1 Privatisation
    • 4.3.2 Interconnect
    • 4.3.3 Access
    • 4.3.4 Number portability
    • 4.3.5 Carrier selection/carrier PreSelection
• 5. Fixed network operator in Bulgaria
  • 5.1 Overview of operators
    • 5.1.1 Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (BTC)/Vivacom
    • 5.1.2 Orbitel
    • 5.1.3 Vestitel
    • 5.1.4 MobilTel
• 6. Telecommunications infrastructure
• 7. Related reports

• Table 1 – Country statistics – 2011 (e)
• Table 2 – Telephone network statistics – 2010
• Table 3 – Internet user statistics – 2011 (e)
• Table 4 – Internet subscriber statistics – 2011 (e)
• Table 5 – Broadband subscriber statistics – 2011 (e)
• Table 6 – Mobile statistics – 2011 (e)
• Table 7 – National telecommunications authority
• Table 8 – Telecom sector revenue – 2009 - 2010
• Table 8 – BTC interconnection rates – 2006 - 2009
• Table 9 – Cost of local loop unbundling and shared access – 2006 - 2009
• Table 10 – BTC financial data – 2003 - 2011
• Table 11 – BTC revenue by sector (%) – 2010
• Table 12 – Fixed lines in service and teledensity – 2000 - 2012

• Chart 1 – BTC financial data – 2003 – 2011
• Chart 2 – Fixed lines in service and teledensity – 2000 – 2012

• Exhibit 1 – The EU regulatory framework for communications
• Exhibit 2 – Access, the local loop and unbundling – an overview