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Our company observes the standards for landline and mobile portability

VIVACOM supports the efforts of the official institutions to set in place new rules in the telecom market in keeping with the European practices. This operator believes that more initiatives are needed for regulating communications. In the area of mobile portability and termination rates, to take one example, the progress has been insufficient.


Due to cumbersome procedures, very few people have used the option of mobile portability since this service was launched in 2008. In addition, the introduction of a 20-second message for calls to ported numbers effectively deters such connections.

VIVACOM hails the initiative of the Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) for streamlining the procedures for number porting and scrapping the voice message for calls to ported numbers. Our company is also supportive of the idea to introduce one-stop-shop service in the event of transfer from one to another operator and retaining the number. 

Currently, VIVACOM is the only operator which observes the requirement for a duration of the said voice message of up to 3 seconds. Bulgaria's biggest mobile operator, Mobiltel, persistently refuses to comply with the regulator's decision in respect of the manner of notifying callers to a transferred number, and refuses to drop the voice message.

In connection with landline portability VIVACOM declares that it observes strictly the portability procedure. The customer service centres where certificates for "leaving" the VIVACOM network are obtained, are the same as those where one can request switching to VIVACOM from a different provider. Information about the said customer service centres, their location and office hours, is available in the VIVACOM website, at www.vivacom.bg. For comparison, the biggest alternative providers have outlets in no more than 20 population centres.

Three months after the start of landline portability, 0.11 per cent of fixed number users chose to switch providers. By comparison, the like number for mobile portability makes up 0.05 per cent. This margin - twice as many mobile users compared to landline users - is due to the reluctance of the largest mobile operator to adopt the best European practices for number portability.

Importantly, the termination rates in Bulgaria remain among Europe's highest. VIVACOM said as early as last year that Bulgaria needs to bring down termination rates by 40 per cent or more with immediate effect, if it wants to narrow the gap with the rest of the European Union countries, where the rates were cut by nearly 80 per cent in the 2001-2007 period against 0 per cent in Bulgaria.  

In line with the recommendations of the European Commission of January 2009 and in the best interests of Bulgarian consumers VIVACOM's expectations were as follows:

1. Immediately equalizing the F2M and M2M rates which will do away with the discriminatory treatment of the landline and mobile users;

2. Immediately adjusting the rates for termination in mobile networks to levels matching the European average.

It has always been VIVACOM's belief that users should enjoy freedom when they make their calls and should pay the same price regardless of whether they are calling from a fixed or a mobile telephone. The company will fight for introducing and observing the best European practices in this area, to be able to offer its clients an integrated service of the highest quality at accessible prices.

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