The President of Bulgaria Rossen Plevneliev presented an award for active position on socially important causes and sustainable corporate social responsibility policies to Mtel’s CEO Thanasis Katsiroumpas.
The award was presented on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the telecom. The company has invested over 3.5 billion leva in the country over the last two decades.
"I am very pleased with this award. It shows that our efforts to contribute to the development of Bulgaria in the last 20 years are paying off", said Thanasis Katsiroumpas. ”We are committed to continue working and investing in the country as well as introducing innovations in the world of technologies so that Bulgarian citizens can make use of their benefits. We believe that our corporate social responsibility is a way in which we are making a significant contribution to the Bulgarian society.”
At the end of 1995, when the telecom launched its business, it only had 3804 customers. Today they are over 4.2 million. Over the past 20 years, they have talked over 71 billion minutes over Mtel’s mobile network, which equals to about 50 million days or 135,000 years.
The average age of Mtel’s employees is currently 33 years. Today they are over 2800, while in 1995 they numbered only 114. Today, the telecom has 243 stores across the country, while in the first year of its existence it had only one. Over the years the company's employees have serviced more than 55 million calls in Mtel’s Call Center, while over 730 million calls were directed to the automated self-service number *88.
The teams responsible for the maintenance and development of Mtel’s network manage more than 3,000 base stations, which cover more than 99% of the territory and population of the country with their signal. The total height of all base stations exceeds 13 kilometers, which is over four kilometers higher than Mount Everest. For their construction over the past 20 years over 40,000 cubic meters of concrete and 100,000 tons of metal have been used. Thanks to these base stations nearly 70% of the population can currently browse the internet at speeds of up to 42 Mbps in Mtel’s 3G network.
The length of Mtel’s optical network, which delivers high-speed internet and TV to the Bulgarian households, is about 7500 km long. For comparison this is approximately the distance between Sofia and Washington.
