Mobikom (merged)

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Mobikom was awarded a national analog (NMT 450) cellular license in 1993 and launched its service in December 1993. Mobikom provided cellular, paging, value added, wireless local loop and Internet services by the end of 1999. The company was created as a joint venture integrated by Cable&Wireless (49%), state-owned Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (39%) and Radio Electronic System of Bulgaria (12%). The phone service based on the NMT 450 system is called Mobifon, and had a 90% area coverage includes all main cities and roads by 1999. The company competed with GSM providers Mobil Tel AD and Globul in 2003. As of 2003, Mobikom served some four percent of Bulgaria's mobile phone market with around 115,000 subscribers. The company competed with GSM providers Mobiltel, who lead the market with a 75 percent share, and Globul, which had around one million customers. The shareholders of Mobikom decided on December 22, 2003 to put off the operator's digitisation due to the delayed privatisation of the state telecom operator, Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (BTC). Mobikom shareholders had gaven the green light to the digitisation project, which was estimated to cost some US$60 million (48.4 mln euro), but decided to put it off hoping that the BTC sell-off will be finalised in early 2004. Mobikom had planned to replace its analogue Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) network standard to digital Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) standard. In October of 2003, C&W made public its willingness to sell its stake in Mobikom. The Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (BTC) bought the 49% C&W had in Mobikom in early 2005 for $13.44 million. On February 10, 2005, BTC completed the purchase of Mobikom by buying the last 12% from the Radio Electronic System of Bulgaria. BTC launched a nation-wide GSM network in 2005 and intended to close transfer all Mobikom customers to the new operator. BTC intended to close down Mobikom in 2006.