Nearly 400,000 Bulgarians and 140 municipalities in remote areas where connectivity is not well developed will have access to high-speed internet at 1 Gbps over a fibre-optic network and will be covered by a 5G mobile network.
The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Transport and Communications signed an agreement to implement an investment from the Recovery and Sustainability Plan. Nearly 470 million leva will be invested to build and improve connectivity in remote and rural areas of the country.
According to the global rankings for 2023, our country ranks 8th in the world and 3rd in Europe in terms of average mobile internet speed, while it is only 66th in terms of fixed access to the global network. These indicators will be significantly improved after the implementation of the project.
Part of the activities foresees the construction of 3700 km of new fibre optic routes while over 1800 km of existing cables will be replaced with new ones with much higher capacity. In addition, 450 base stations will be provided with fibre optic instead of radio relay connectivity. The active equipment in these stations remains the commitment of the mobile operators.
The Ministry of Transport and Communications is actively working to implement the activities, objectives and milestones set out in the investment. The next steps are the submission of the State aid notification to the European Commission and the announcement of the application procedure by the operators.
A geographical survey and mapping exercise is currently being carried out to identify the areas and specific locations to be covered by the investment.
The project also includes the completion of the public administration network, which is operated by Electronic Governance Infrastructure Executive Agency. It will thus cover all 265 municipalities. Its transmission capacity will be increased in order to improve the access of people and businesses to administrative services. Border crossing points will also be connected and additional routes will ensure continuity of services.