The meeting in Pleven was opened by Mr Ivaylo Moskovski, Minister of Transport, Information Technology and Communications. The following issues were discussed: 

The Minister informed about the two main priorities in the area of eGovernment: 

- development of information and communication networks covering the whole country, in order to ensure that even the most remote areas have access to the Internet; 

- provision of e-services for the end users in order to reduce the bureaucratic burden for them. 

The Minister announced that 100 million BGN were being invested in eGovernment projects. 

There is already a lot of progress in the area of eGovernment deployment. During the latest census held in February 2011 around 46% of the people filled in the questionnaire online. 75% of the population can file tax return forms online. The government has recently introduced an electronic leaflet for conducting theoretical examination of candidate drivers as well as an electronic system for technical examinations of vehicles. 

The biggest challenge is the interconnection between the various systems that exist at regional and municipal level, as well as between those of the different authorities – police, tax administration, etc. This is expected to be completed by the end of 2012. The government intends to put an end to the practice of scattered projects and in the future will focus on projects that fit into its overall strategy. 

A major eGovernment project is running in the Pleven region, covering 12 regional administrations and 74 municipalities. It foresees the development of 47 different services, of which 23 are for the regional administration and 24 – for the municipality administrations. The eGovernment services will require the use of a qualified electronic signature, which allows presenting the information in court. Access to the information will be ensured for 20 years, in line with the law. A detailed demonstration was provided by the contractors developing the project. 

One of the current obstacles for the actual take-up of eGovernment services is the relatively high price of eSignatures, which limits the number of people who actually use them. For the moment, only about 20 0000 qualified eSignatures are issued in the country. 

Furthermore, the procedure for registration of information objects and digital services has been slow and heavy, but it has seen considerable improvements recently. 

Broadband is seen as a tool for economic recovery, insofar as it can increase competitiveness and contribute to overcoming the digital divide.

Bulgaria has a national strategy for the Development of Broadband Access covering the period 2012-2013. The strategy was adopted in 2009 and will soon be updated.

It focuses on the following priorities: 

- strengthening the social cohesion through better access to online services, particularly in rural and remote regions. (The relatively low broadband coverage in the country is mainly due to the situation in these regions). 

- integration of the government information networks and development of a broadband infrastructure with the aim to ensure the smooth functioning of eGovernment services in Bulgaria

- development and improvement of the existing broadband infrastructure in order to gradually move to next generation networks.

The topic was presented by representatives of Vivacom (currently the largest telecommunications company in Bulgaria) and Optisprint (the leading Internet Service provider in the Pleven region).

Vivacom has over 2.5 million fixed line subscribers, over 1.8 million mobile service subscribers and 350 000 subscribers of high-speed Internet, of which 11 000 are in the Pleven region. The company is investing 1.2 billion BGN in optimisation of their network. Vivacom presented their new Internet package FiberNet, launched on 1 August this year, which offers high-speed Optic Internet of up to 100 Mbps and relies on a completely new network infrastructure. The company aims to cover with this service over 100,000 households in the capital by the end of the year and to reach over 1 million households throughout the country in three years.

Optisprint also gave an interesting presentation about their services and the developments in the Pleven region. The company aims to double the speed they offer at least once/year. At the moment, they offer speeds between 30 and 100 Mbps, and are planning to offer, by 2014, Internet access with speed of 1 Gb. 

Optisprint noted that Bulgaria is a world leader in terms of price of the service – 0.68$/Mbps, whereas the average for Europe is 5,18$ and worldwide – 9.90$. 

According to download speeds, Bulgaria is in 7th place with an average speed of 20.9 Mbps. For comparison, in Europe the average download speed is 12,66 Mbps and worldwide it is 9.03 Mbps.

Based on upload speeds Bulgaria is in 5th place with an average speed of 11.25 Mbps (3,56 Mbps in Europe and 3,07 globally).

The visit included a meeting with the Executive Director of the National Center 112.

As of September 2008, the emergency number 112 has 100% national coverage. By the beginning of October 2011 the process of redirecting all emergency numbers to 112 is to be finalised.

The former emergency numbers will be kept in place, but 112 offers certain advantages – all calls are recorded and free of charge.

In Bulgaria, the service is provided in Bulgarian, English, German and French on a 24/7 basis. Italian, Czech and several other languages are also available, but not on a full-time basis. 

The center maintains a fixed-phone database which is updated twice per month, and based on which operators are able to identify the administrative address of the caller. Mobile phone users' location can be located in real time.

40% of the calls to 112 are either for an ambulance or the police, the rest are related to firefighter brigades and municipalities. The current rate of hoax calls is 50-60%. The service has received a very little number of complaints, most being related to a delay in the arrival of an ambulance, which is not the fault of the 112 service itself. 

The center is looking into ways to improve the services for disabled people. The solution so far has been the use of sms, however, it does not allow for localisation of the caller. Work is ongoing to introduce requirements for telecom operators to implement localisation. 

The center has organised a number of information campaigns which contributed to the high level of awareness about it among Bulgarian citizens (60%).