SOFIA (Bulgaria), February 25 (SeeNews) – Bulgarian mobile operator Mobiltel, a unit of Telekom Austria Group, said on Wednesday it will invest 150 million levs ($87.2 million/76.7 million euro) this year into expanding and optimising its services and mobile network.
The company intends to create a single radio access network, which allows the service of 2G, 3G and 4G networks, and to launch a network function visualisation system in Bulgaria by the end of 2015 or the beginning of next year, Mobiltel said in a press release.
The telecom will also upgrade its fixed-line network and migrate LAN networks to optic fiber-to-the-home and fiber-to-the-building networks. Moreover, it will increase its fixed-line coverage by 100,000 households. Currently, its fixed-line services cover a third of the households in the country.
“The company is working on completing the modernisation of its mobile network by the beginning of April,” Horst Pertl, Mobiltel's chief technology officer, said, adding that the company started works on upgrading its network a few years ago.
Mobiltel's 3G network, with speeds of up to 42 Mbps, which also supports services with speeds of up to 21 Mbps, is available to nearly 70% of Bulgaria's population.
Mobiltel's investments, since its launch in 1995, exceed 2.5 billion levs, of which 1.7 billion levs were conducted in the 2005-2014 period. In 2014 alone, the mobile operator invested 200 million levs.
Mobiltel, which operated under the Mtel brand, holds a market share of 37.6% and has more than 4.2 million customers.
On the Bulgarian market, Mobiltel competes with Telenor and incumbent telco VIVACOM.
(1 euro=1.95583 Bulgarian levs)