Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications

Bulgaria ranks among the European countries with fastest broadband access according to ITU’s annual report, said the Deputy Minister of Transport, Information Technology and Communications, Georgi Todorov, at the international conference “Cooperation between the ICT Clusters for growth, prosperity and compatibility in the Black Sea region”.

Irrespective of those accomplishments, the situation in remote, sparsely-populated and rural areas is different and the state should interfere so as to avoid “digital separation”. The Deputy Minister added that at the end of 2013 a project for the provision of next generation high-speed broadband access was launched in 29 municipal centers and 24 small areas in sparsely-populated and remote regions.

Mr. Todorov outlined that in 2013 the Single Electronic Communication Network (SECN) for the state administration was commissioned. This system allowed to virtually connect the ministerial and local administration networks into a single national information infrastructure by preserving their information independence, autonomous management and excluding any form of unregulated access to the transferred information. Currently there are 1300 institutions and their subdivisions connected. Deputy Minister Todorv said that SECN will save over 30 million levs annually of the institutions’ budgets allocated to communication connectivity and data transfer.

The next important step is the improvement of the existing broadband infrastructures and the transition towards next generation broadband access networks. An option for the implementation of the planned investment initiatives Mr. Todorov suggested joint public-private financing. The aim is to achieve 100 % broadband penetration on the territory of the whole country by 2020 by a gradual transition towards super-high-speed next generation access networks via new technological solutions, mainly optical, LTE and satellite connectivity. Due to their high parameters, those NGA networks will allow for the provision of new complex electronic services, concluded the Deputy Minister.