Bulgaria

Geographic Region (ITU/UN)

ISO 3166 Code

BG

M49 Code

100

MCC

284

ITU Member

Yes

ITU-R Region

Overview

Bulgaria (България), officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, and the Black Sea to the east.

The country has very high mobile and wireless broadband usage, both exceeding averages for the European region. The industry is moderately competitive with four major national mobile network operators, and a small number of fixed networks with incumbent Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (BTC) still maintaining a dominant position. According to latest ITU data (June 2017) mobile coverage reaches 100% of the population, and 4G LTE accessible by 86.8% of Bulgarians. After becoming a member of the European Union in 2007 the Bulgarian telecommunications sector has undergone reform to improve competition. The National Broadband Infrastructure Plan for Next Generation Access developed in 2014 laid down framework to achieve 100% fixed broadband access at a rate of 30 Mbps by 2020.

Bulgaria is a member of the ITU and as such follows radio frequency harmonisation principles according to ITU-R Region-1. The regulatory body governing communications policy is the Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications, and the Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) is charged with regulating the country's radio frequency spectrum activities such as planning, allocations, and licencing.

Bulgarian 5G

The Bulgarian CRC finalised its public consultation on frequency allocations in October 2017. The proposed bands for 5G services include; 1.5 GHz (1452 to 1492 MHz), three paired blocks of 5 MHz in the 2.1 GHz band (1920 to 1935 MHz / 2110 to 2125 MHz), FDD spectrum in the 2.6 GHz band (2500 to 2570 MHz / 2620 to 2690 MHz), 50 MHz of TDD spectrum in the 2.6 GHz (2570 to 2620 MHz), 3.5 GHz from 3430 to 3600 MHz, and 110 MHz TDD in the 3.8 GHz band (3645 to 3700 MHz and 3745 to 3800 MHz).

National Mobile Network Operators

There are 2 mobile network operators servicing this region.

3G: Active
3G Bands: B1 (2100 MHz)
4G: Active
5G: Trialling
IoT: N/A
3G: Active
4G: Active
5G: N/A
IoT: Active
IoT Technology: LoRa