Bulgarian Telecommunications Company

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Bulgarian Telecommunications Company

Type	joint stock company
Founded	1992
Headquarters	Sofia, Bulgaria
Key people	Martin Staub, CEO
Industry	telecommunications
Products	fixed line telephony, Internet services, mobile telephony (as Vivatel)
Revenue	113.12 million leva (first half of 2005)
Employees	~20,000
Website	http://www.btc.bg

The Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (Bulgarian: Българска телекомуникационна компания, Balgarska telekomunikatsionna kompaniya, abbreviated as БТК, BTC) is the largest telecommunications company in Bulgaria and a former state-owned monopoly. Founded as a joint stock company in the end of 1992 as part of the separation of Bulgaria's post and telecommunication services into separate companies, it serves a total of 2.9 million fixed phone lines and employs about 20,000 people.

65% of the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company were sold to Viva Ventures, owned by Advent International, for €280 million in June 2004. As part of the deal, BTC was provided a GSM operator license and launched Vivatel, Bulgaria's third GSM operator, in 2005. An UMTS license was additionally purchased in May 2005.

Besides serving the vast majority of fixed telephone lines in the country, BTC is also the biggest Bulgarian ADSL Internet service provider with 100,000 customers.