July 2 (SeeNews) - Telecommunications company A1 Bulgaria, the local unit of A1 Telekom Austria group, said it launched a 5G base station, the first in Bulgaria, and is starting application testing.
A1 Bulgaria's 5G base station became operational after the communications regulator granted the company testing frequencies for six months, the company said in a statement on Monday.
"I believe that with the effort and investments we have made, we will continue to successfully test various 5G applications and we will begin to offer solutions to our clients in 2020," Krasimir Petrov, Senior Network Convergence and Services at A1 Bulgaria, said in a company statement.
In order for this to happen, favourable conditions for obtaining frequencies in line with the development of the local market should be present and the process of getting permission to build a network should be streamlined, he added.
In Bulgaria, A1 competes with the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (BTC), which operates under the brand name Vivacom, Telenor Bulgaria - a unit of Czech Republic-based investment group PPF, and local Max Telecom, which was set up by the founder of Mobiltel.