An international cellular operator and a U.S. paging equipment provider have cellular and paging service up and running in Bulgaria, despite the former Eastern bloc government’s sluggish efforts to privatize business.
A Bulgarian joint venture led by Cable & Wireless plc purchased a cellular license from the former communist regime last year-for an undisclosed sum-and installed an analog Nordic Mobile Telephone network. The venture, Radio Telecommunications Co., also called RTC Mobikom, markets the service as Mobifone.
“We believe that by at least one measure, we’re the fastest-growing cellular company in the history of Eastern Europe,” said Kevin Duffey, RTC Bovikom’s head of marketing.
The company reports 6,300 customers, a figure higher than original estimates, Duffey said. Seven cities have cellular coverage, including the capital city of Sofia, surrounding suburbs, the roadway to the city of Plovidv in South Central Bulgaria and the Eastern coastal cities of Varna and Burgas on the Black Sea.
RTC also holds a paging license. Glenayre Technologies Inc., the Charlotte, N.C.-based manufacturer of wireless equipment, supplied RTC with a turkey paging system last summer. The nationwide service is marketed as Mobipage and went online in August. Mobipage has nearly 500 subscribers, half of the total paging market, Duffey said.
Other partners in RTC are the nations government-owned telephone operator, Bulgarian Telecommunications Co. Ltd., with a 39 percent stake in the venture, and Electronic Systems Ltd., a government-led Bulgarian company, holding a 12 percent interest. London-based Cable & Wireless maintains a 49 percent majority interest.
Cellular handsets are costly in Bulgaria, between $780 and $1,250 to purchase, but call charges run about 25 cents per minute.
“People with money are using it as a substitution for the fixed network,” said Bjorn VonHaartmen, area manager of European standards for L.M. Ericsson, the cellular equipment provider for RTC. “It gives them better service. It’s a pattern we see all over the Eastern bloc.”
The antiquated landline telephone system built in 1929 for the Balkan nation of 9 million people is still in the hands of the nation’s new government. Bulgaria has been granted an international loan to upgrade its phone system with a digital overlay, but productions is reportedly moving slowly.
With a cellular phone, Bulgarians are able to make international calls directly; the landline system still requires the use of an operator for overseas access. Local calls also can be made more easily with cellular, officials said.
The NMT-450 system was chosen for Bulgaria because it operates at 450 MHz, where spectrum is available. In Warsaw Pact countries, 800 MHz and 900 MHz frequencies are commonly reserved for use by the military and the airlines, officials said.
That, however, is changing. An other international consortium, MobilTEL AG, recently bought a license to provide Global System for Mobile communications cellular phone service in Bulgaria. MobiTEL is scheduled to go online with GSM digital service in February. RTC has plans to apply for a GSM license as well.
MobiTEL AG is a joint venture led by Vienna-based TROM GmbH and some Bulgarian business leaders; U.S. West Inc. is in discussions with that consortium, but no final commitment has been announced.
RTC’s billing is done in the Cyrillic language of Bulgaria, said Subscriber Computing Inc., the company that handles the consortium’s invoicing.
“Everything-data entry screens and help messages – is in Bulgarian. Our multilingual capacity module allows us to conduct business in Bulgarian and produce Cyrillic invoices,” said RTC billing coordinator Zaltolina Mukova.