site.btaBulgaria's 5G Is Fastest in Central, Eastern Europe

In the first quarter of 2022, Bulgaria offered the fastest 5G network among all nine Central and Eastern European countries, Speedtest Intelligence reports. The median download speed of Bulgaria's 5G was 406.97 Mbps, faster than the networks in Croatia, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.

According to the same analysis, Bulgaria also ranked first in the increase of 5G availability (the proportion of users of 5G-capable devices who spend a majority of their time on 5G networks), by 27.3%, year on year: from 3.0% in the first quarter of 2021 to 30.5% in the first quarter of 2022. By comparison, 5G availability in Croatia grew by 7.3% during the same period.

Sofia, too, is the capital city in the region with the fastest and most readily available 5G in the first quarter of 2022: a median download speed of 441.93 Mbps (compared to Zagreb's 289.25 Mbps), a median upload speed of 36.04%, and 30% availability (up from 25.1% in Zagreb).

In the last quarter of 2021, however, Bulgaria lagged behind Hungary, Czechia and Slovakia in 5G as a proportion of total smartphone shipments, according to Counterpoint Research. In Bulgaria, 5G smartphones account for two in five smartphones shipped, compared to 65.1% in Hungary.

The first commercial 5G network was launched in Bulgaria in September 2020, by one of the country's three mobile operators, via Dynamic Spectrum Sharing at 1,800 and 2,100 MHz. Another operator followed closely, in the 3,600 MHz range, and the third one joined in early June 2021, again in the 3,600 MHz band.