BULGARIA'S telecommunication market grew by 11 per cent in 2004 after Bulgarian operators expanded their range of services, and because of constantly increasing competition after the licensing of the third GSM operator.
On May 19, Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) chairperson Gergana Surbova gave a briefing on the state of the market. Surbova is expected to provide more detailed information by the end of June when fuller data will be available.
The CRC reported growth of 10.7 per cent for 2003, when the market reached 1.1 billion euro.
Mobile services continued to grow at the expense of the fixed-line market, said Surbova. The former state monopoly, the Bulgarian Telecommunication Company (BTC), lost 40 per cent of its incoming and 11 per cent of its outgoing international call traffic after the end of its monopoly of the provision of leased lines and fixed-line services.
The domestic legal framework was lagging behind the technological innovations introduced by the operators, Surbova said.
As of this year, rival operators have access to BTC subscribers. These alternative operators are marketing carrier pre-selection, a service available either through a dialling code or a subscription fee. The 16 newly-licensed operators may offer fixed-line services only through the sale of vouchers, which was not a customer-friendly approach, said Surbova.
A week earlier, Transport and Communications Minister Nikolai Vassilev said that Bulgaria expected to attract two billion euro in investments in its telecommunication sector over the next five years.
The investments include spending on third-generation UMTS telephony. The CRC handed on May 11 three high-speed, third-generation mobile-service licences to the country's three GSM operators, worth a total 162 million leva.
BTC is to launch its GSM network this year. All three, including MobilTel and Globul, are to launch 3G networks over the next few years.