Competitive prepaid services for individual customers and post-paid offers for business clients marked the November 5 launch of Bulgaria’s third GSM operator, Vivatel. Vivatel is a subsidiary of the Bulgarian Telecommunication Company (BTC), which was privatised in 2004 by Austrian-based consortium Viva Ventures, led by US investment fund Advent International.
The new operator’s starting package costs 20 levs, and offers a SIM card and call minutes for the same amount of money. The tariff is 0.37 levs without VAT, or 0.444 levs with VAT, a minute. The minimum charged time is 30 seconds. The price is uniformed for calling every other network in the country, including BTC’s and other fixed networks, as well as the competitive GSM operators, MobilTel and GloBul. The cost of an SMS (short message) is 0.16 levs (without VAT). For comparison, MobilTel and GloBul, the main competitors on the mobile market so far, charge between 0.39 and 0.49 levs (VAT excluded) a minute on their prepaid calls. Vivatel also announced the launch of a promotional campaign, under which, on 7th January 2006, customers will be refunded every minute of calls they have made up until that date.
The company is said to be the first on the Bulgarian mobile market to launch several services, including prepaid roaming and GPRS, prepaid business packages, as well as free content to download logos, melodies and screensavers. Vivatel also started its first subscription campaign, or post-paid services, but only for business subscribers.
Initially two tariff plans are offered. One is with a subscription fee of 12 levs (with VAT) and has 50 minutes free of calls included. The second is with 18 levs fee and has 100 free minutes.After exhausting their free minutes, subscribers will pay 0.18 levs (without VAT) for a minute under the first tariff inside the Vivatel network and when calling fixed lines, and 0.39 levs (without VAT) when calling other operators. For the second package, the corresponding prices are 0.15 levs and 0.35 levs (without VAT). Post-paid packages for individual customers will be available soon. It appears with any luck and a following wind that for the first time, Bulgarian subscribers will be offered prices close to those on the Western European mobile markets.
Exchange rates = approximately 2.5 levs to the pound.
