Internet Access in Bulgariahistoric review and current status

by Veni MarkovskiPresident and Chairman of the Board

Internet Society – Bulgariaweb: isoc.bg

email: veni @ veni.com sip: 2460056 @ sip2go.com

This presentation is distributed under Creative Commons - attribution license

History

● 1987 – 1999 mainly dial-up● 1996 – first international private line to Merit

(9600 bps over X.25, at $ 3000 / month)● some leased lines (9600 bps; telecom introduced

noise-production technologies to cut using synchronous modems for higher speeds)

● 1996 – first presidential election campaign on-line ● 1999 – introduced licenses on ISP (and successful

court fight to abolish them)● 2000 – wi-fi introduced

History

● 2001 – building the first LANs● 2001 – first parliamentary elections campaign on-

line● 2001 – VoIP is made legal ● 2002-2005 – foreign investments come into the

sector● 2005 – complete LAN coverage in big cities● 2006 – wi-max licenses operational

Number of Internet Users and ISPs

Year Users ISPs1994 3,000 3+1999 76,000 10+2001 512,000 <1002006 2,400,000 hundreds

distribution (percentage of all users):ADSL: 11 %LAN: 55 %cable: 24 %dial-up: 10 %

LAN technical details

Typical network uses:● 8-Port-10/100 switches (chipset rtl8309sb

mostly Repotec, Ladox, TP-link)● FTP Cat5e cable● power supply over LAN: 42V/ac 200W (allows

5-10 switches i.e 500-1000 m)

LAN development and features

One large ISP:● 60 miles fiber-optic● hundreds of miles of LAN● high-speed for end-users: 100 Mbps –

1000 Mbps● local content: terabytes of music, films,

software

Current Situation

● hundreds of ISPs providing high-speed Internet access (from 10 to 1000 Mbps)

● “Block” providers – servicing one or couple of blocks; sometimes with as low as 100 customers (and with only 1-2 people support)

Pricing and Conditions

● Current conditions:● Unlimited Internet Access at Eur 15 / month (with

high speeds ranging from 10 to 1000 Mbps)● VPN● separate national and international bandwidth

(national much higher; gives access to huge libraries of data)

● free dial-up access numbers● VoIP

Network structure

8/16 port switches

fiber-opticmedia convertors

fiber-optic

LAN cables

Conclusions

Thank you!Contacts for more information:

+359-2-4018009 or sip: 2460056 @ sip2go.com

veni @ veni.com