EC: Numbers of Bulgaria Internet Users Still Low

EC 2009 Digital Competitiveness Report has concluded that Bulgaria has made progress in terms of Internet use but levels are still low when compared to those of other EU states. Photo by BGNES

There has been an increase of Bulgarian internet users in the last one year, but the country is still with the lowest levels of internet use in Europe, states the EC 2009 Digital Competitiveness Report.

40% or less of Bulgarians, Greeks and Romanians use the internet regularly, points out the report.

According to data by the Commission more than 50% of Bulgarians have never used the internet while only a quarter of the population has broadband.

“The most rapid changes have been the spread of broadband and mobile connections as well as improvements in their quality. In almost all countries broadband is used by more than three quarters of enterprises (with the exception of Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania). In the cases of Bulgaria, Romania the broadband market follows completely different patterns. Due to the absence of legacy infrastructure based on PSTN, competition is based on cable modem networks and, in new local networks, fibre + LAN. DSL lines only represent around 30 % of all broadband retail lines and new entrants hardly rent any PSTN lines from the incumbent.” says the report.

The sites that are most visited by Bulgarian internet users are the global internet utilities (google,vbox, youtube, vbox7, abv.bg) and the social networking site Facebook.

The EC concludes that Bulgaria has the lowest regular internet use levels in Europe, yet it has progressed in all the IT sectors in 2009 – it has built a modern IT infrastructure, ICT has been used for governmental sites, portals, electronic applications.

Despite its low levels of distribution, broadband in Bulgaria is one of the fastest in Europe, points out the report.

Also Bulgaria is one of the few European countries in which the quality of Internet improves while the price decreases.

In April, the European Director of the International Recording Federation, Frances Moore, said that Bulgaria ranks first in the EU by Internet piracy, the head of Bulgaria's Crime Department declared that the government will go after the investors in Internet piracy rather than regular Internet users.

As a result, the Bulgarian police announced the launch an operation to restrict the activity of those who invest in Internet piracy.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!