Bulgaria's telecoms regulator, the Communications Regulation Commission has published the details of its recently announced GSM spectrum tender. Eleven companies have indicated their interest in the GSM1800 spectrum auction, although the regulator declined to name the interested companies due to a policy of not naming parties which have submitted non-binding letters.

 Local landline operators, Max Telecom, Transtelecom and Carrier BG along with Turkey's Turkcell are tipped to be among the more likely potential bidders. The three incumbent mobile operators have indicated that they will not bid for the spectrum.

The regulator has announced that the license will be for 20 years and is to be sold by auction on 29th July. The auction will have a reserve price of BGN 38 million (US$30.2 million).

The country already has four operators - although only three are operational, and according to figures from the Mobile World database, their market shares are: Globul (38%), MobilTEL (51%), Globul (38%) and BTC Mobile (10%). The market itself is saturated with a population penetration level which reaches 137%.

Source: CRC - Mobile World