BTC has 2.9 million phone installed connections and the number is still growing. Bulgaria is one of the CEE countries with the highest fixed line telephone penetration rate - 85% of all households.
In June 2004, Bulgarian authorities sold after obvious procedure 65% of BTC to Viva Ventures, a subsidiary of the leading US private equity fund Advent International. Viva Ventures paid EUR 280 million, including EUR 50 million destined to raise the company's capital and pledged to invest several hundreds million over five years to upgrade the telecom's analogue network and release of a range of new services, based on data transfer and the Internet.
Bulgaria's third GSM license was awarded to BTC as part of the privatization deal. BTC was handed over the document after it remitted the fee, amounting to 54,160,000 BGN or 27,600,000 EUR. In the beginning of 2005 BTC also acquired successfully 100% of the first Bulgarian mobile operator – Mobikom.