Mtel Rebrands as A1 Bulgaria; Plans 5G Launch in 2020

Bulgarian telecoms operator Mobiltel (Mtel), a subsidiary of A1 Telekom Austria Group, has completed its rebranding to A1 Bulgaria. The newly renamed operator will also offer new services, including its own line of smartphones, a music streaming platform and financial services. The Bulgarian unit is the third company in the A1 Group to adopt the new name, after the Austrian and Slovenian operators took on the moniker earlier in 2018, with units in Belarus, Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia scheduled to follow suit. Alexander Dimitrov, Executive Director of A1 Bulgaria, said: ‘Today we are part of something big – a strong international brand like A1 – it brings us new standards of service, a unified corporate culture, more knowledge and experience, and the new brand reflects our goal of being a leader by taking advantage of the potential of digitisation in benefiting our customers.’

Further, the executive highlighted the need of additional spectrum for the deployment of 5G services in the country. Dimitrov said that telecoms watchdog the Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) and the government have yet to take steps in this direction and that A1 is ‘working actively with the CRC’ on the issue, adding that at this stage there remained no clarity as to when the military will vacant the 700MHz and 800MHz bands. The CEOhowever revealed that A1 is aiming to be the first company to launch 5G in Bulgaria, with plans to deploy the technology in 2020. – Tele Geography