Summary
- Bulsat Ltd. is supported by current network-resource evidence through AS50368, which RIPEstat showed as announced in July 2026 with 87.121.128.0/22 and related more-specific routes, and by a separate current Vivacom Bulgaria EAD-Bulsatcom PeeringDB profile for AS43205 with regional Cable/DSL/ISP characteristics. That evidence supports the network-resource topic, but only as operating-surface proof. It does not prove household uptime, evening speed, customer satisfaction or financial resilience.
- Bulsatcom's public paid unit has shifted from independent growth to retained account repair. Official Bulsatcom and Vivacom pages say existing services, prices, prepaid balances, contact channels and support routes were preserved during the 2024 integration, while a December 2024 Bulsatcom tariff sheet still listed television, receiver, optical internet and TV-plus-internet bundle prices for existing plans, with the important caveat that those offers were not available to new customers from 24 November 2024.
- The company matters because it sits at the overlap of three Bulgarian markets: legacy satellite TV, fixed broadband and national converged bundles. CRC's 2023 report showed Bulsatcom as a measurable fixed-internet provider and the third-largest retail pay-TV operator, but also showed declining shares. United Group's 2024 acquisition and the 2026 court resolution around infrastructure assets changed the repair equation by putting Bulsatcom accounts inside Vivacom's larger content, 5G, fibre, billing and support system.
The household account is the economic unit
The cleanest way to understand Bulsat Ltd. is to start with a household rather than a tower, a satellite or an autonomous system number. A family in Bulgaria has a television plan, one or more receivers, perhaps optical internet at the same address, a customer number, an established payment routine and a phone number to call when the set-top box or line fails. If the household stays, the operator keeps monthly revenue and has a chance to add EON TV, better broadband, mobile service or equipment replacement. If the household leaves, the operator loses not just one television subscription but a whole repairable account: viewing habits, billing trust, installed hardware and the chance to move that home from old satellite economics into a broader digital bundle.
That is why the Bulsatcom story is not just a story about a brand acquired by United Group. It is an account-conversion problem. The legacy Bulsatcom offer was built around direct-to-home satellite television, IPTV, broadband and, at different points, mobile-data ambitions. The current public evidence shows that after United Group completed the acquisition in February 2024, the most important operational task was continuity. Bulsatcom told customers in March 2024 that the prices of current services, prepaid future periods, existing contracts, service addresses, replacement equipment, payment channels, contact channels and the online customer portal would be preserved. In July 2024, another Bulsatcom notice welcomed customers into Vivacom and again promised that current services would continue, familiar support channels would remain, business customers would keep current representatives and account managers, and only the company details on invoices, contracts and protocols would change.
Those details are dry, but they are the business model. In a household telecom account, churn often happens during friction: a failed receiver, a missing payment option, a confusing portal migration, a lost customer number, an installer who cannot come, or a bundle whose price no longer feels worth the trouble. The July and November 2024 transition pages show Vivacom and Bulsatcom treating that friction directly. From 25 November 2024, Bulsatcom television customers were offered free access to EON TV and EON Smart TV until plan or service change, the My Vivacom portal took over account management after the old portal deadline, and payment channels moved toward Vivacom shops, Easypay, Bulgarian Posts, My Vivacom and FastPay. Customers were told that existing service conditions and prices would remain unchanged and that prepaid periods would be preserved.
The financial interpretation is straightforward. An acquired base with declining standalone share can still be valuable if it is cheap enough to retain, can be migrated onto a stronger platform, and can be sold better content or broadband over time. It can be destructive if migration creates confusion, support load and cancellations faster than the parent can improve the service. Bulsat's unit is therefore not an abstract "regional ISP." It is the Bulgarian home where television and internet are consumed together, and where the account either becomes repairable inside a larger operator or decays into a price-sensitive legacy subscription.
Identity: Bulsat Ltd. through the Bulsatcom surface
Bulsat Ltd. appears in the network record as the organisation behind AS50368, with the RIPE organisation object ORG-BL92-RIPE naming Bulsat Ltd. in Bulgaria. The public customer brand around the relevant services is Bulsatcom. That distinction matters because the article should not inflate a registry object into a full customer story by itself. The customer-facing story comes from the Bulsatcom and Vivacom service pages, regulator reports, acquisition announcements and market materials. The network story comes from route and interconnection datasets.
The older operating description is still useful because it explains why Bulsatcom became a strategically attractive but strained asset. A 2014 Bulgarian business centre profile described Bulsatcom AD as a telecom operator established in 2000, the largest Bulgarian pay-TV provider by satellite direct-to-home share at that time, a manufacturer of end-user equipment such as set-top boxes and antennas, an internet service provider, and a company moving toward fixed telephony, FTTH/GPON, mobile broadband and four-play bundles. It claimed 320 points of sale and own installation and technical-support services, with technical support provided through on-site engineering, online support and call centres. It also referred to 1,784 employees and an R&D team. Those are historical, company-adjacent statements rather than current audited headcount. They should be used for context, not as current workforce proof.
The more current official surface is narrower and more operational. The Bulsatcom site still shows menus for b.box, satellite television, IPTV, online viewing, additional packages, TV channels, internet, fixed-term and no-term plans, prepaid internet, bundles, contact, business customers, faults, careers and payment methods. Its offers archive includes 2023 and 2024 television, b.box, internet and package promotions. The tariff PDF published in December 2024 listed standard television prices across b.start, b.super, b.premium and b.max; additional satellite, IPTV, b-box and b-box app receivers; premium add-on packages such as HBO, Cinemax, Diema Xtra and Max Sport Plus; hotel plans; optical internet plans; prepaid optical internet; and combined television plus optical-internet packages. It also stated that the offers were not provided to new customers from 24 November 2024.
That last caveat changes the reading. The tariff sheet does not prove an independent new-sales push by Bulsatcom in 2026. It proves that the installed service base and its price architecture remained visible during the transition. For an economics article, that is more interesting than a simple plan table. Bulsatcom is no longer best understood as a challenger trying to win every new household through standalone promotional offers. It is a base of satellite, IPTV and broadband accounts being integrated into Vivacom's larger platform while still carrying old Bulsatcom hardware, portals, phone numbers, contracts and customer expectations.
The bundle is not decoration
Television is easy to underrate in a broadband analysis because fixed internet looks like the more durable service. Yet the Bulsat case shows why television still matters in regional ISP economics. A television plan has channels, sports rights, film add-ons, receivers, remote controls, installation history and family habits. A broadband line has speed, latency, Wi-Fi, a router, fault responsibility and a monthly bill. When the two services are sold or preserved together, the provider is not only charging for bits and channels. It is charging for lower household coordination cost.
The December 2024 tariff sheet makes this visible. Television plans were listed with satellite, IPTV and b.box channel counts. The same document gave optical internet speeds of 30 Mbps, 75 Mbps, 100 Mbps and 200 Mbps, with lower monthly fees when optical internet was combined with a television service. Combined television and optical-internet packages were separately listed. These are not premium fibre speeds by 2026 standards. Their importance is not that 200 Mbps looks technically aggressive beside national 10GIGA marketing. Their importance is that they show a bundle logic: a household that already uses a Bulsatcom TV plan could attach optical internet at a discounted price and keep one service relationship.
Vivacom's integration raises the ceiling of that bundle. Its acquisition announcement said Bulsatcom customers would gain more HD channels, access to more than 30,000 EON video-library titles and improvements in internet service quality in download and upload speeds. Vivacom's current EON pages frame the product as TV plus fast internet, mobile and fixed voice in multi-play packages. Broadband TV News reported in July 2024 that Bulsatcom subscribers were welcomed into the Vivacom family, with current services continuing and new content additions such as Vivacom Arena, Pickbox TV, Duck TV, Filmbox, MTV 90s and Peretz International. In January 2025, the same trade publication reported 20 more channels added to EON, including a local hunting and fishing channel and Viasat True Crime HD.
This content layer is not a side issue. Bulsatcom's satellite-TV history gave it an installed base, but streaming and national IPTV platforms erode the old satellite account if the household can assemble content elsewhere. The repair task is to keep the entertainment account useful enough that the customer tolerates equipment migration, portal changes and a new billing identity. If EON makes the account feel richer and easier to use, Bulsatcom's legacy base can be worth more inside Vivacom than outside it. If customers experience the migration as another reason to compare A1, Yettel, Vivacom native offers, streaming-only options or mobile broadband, the same base can become a churn pool.
The bundle also prices labour. Each extra receiver, each router replacement, each portal login, each payment dispute and each technician visit adds cost. A low-priced television plan is profitable only if the support burden is controlled. That is why the repairability of the account matters more than the headline package. A household with one TV plan, one optical-internet line, working online viewing, a familiar payment route and a phone number that resolves faults is sticky. A household that must chase separate answers for satellite, IPTV, internet, EON login and billing is not.
Network evidence is meaningful but bounded
The network-resource evidence clears the topic gate, but it needs careful limits. RIPEstat's AS overview for AS50368 showed the holder as "BULSATTV-AS Bulsat Ltd." and the autonomous system as announced in July 2026. The announced-prefixes dataset showed 87.121.128.0/22 and the more-specific 87.121.128.0/24, 87.121.129.0/24 and 87.121.130.0/24 visible in the relevant July 2026 query window. The RIPE whois record for AS50368 links the resource to ORG-BL92-RIPE, uses the as-name BULSATTV-AS, shows import and export relationships with AS34224 and AS29030, and records assignment dates in 2009 with a last modification in 2021. A RIPE routing-status query for 87.121.128.0/22 showed origin AS50368, a July 2026 last-seen timestamp and high IPv4 RIS visibility. RIPE's organisation object for ORG-BL92-RIPE names Bulsat Ltd. in Bulgaria and was last modified in 2026.
That is current and useful. It means the directory company's network identity is not only a stale historical allocation. It has visible routing. It also means the article can discuss Bulsat as a network-backed household bundle rather than a pure media reseller. But AS50368 is not, by itself, a claim about service quality. It does not prove that a customer's optical internet is fast at peak hour, that there are enough technicians, that CPE is modern, or that the business is financially sound. Public routing data proves that a network resource exists and is observed. It does not prove the experience at a living-room router.
A second network record complicates the picture in a useful way. PeeringDB lists AS43205 as "Vivacom Bulgaria EAD-Bulsatcom," with organisation Bulsatcom EAD, also known as Vivacom Bulgaria EAD, a regional Cable/DSL/ISP type, 200 IPv4 prefixes, one IPv6 prefix, 50-100 Gbps traffic, a selective peering policy and three exchange presences. The netixlan data showed operational ports at T-CIX, BIX.BG Main and B-IX. RIPEstat also showed AS43205 as announced and held by Vivacom Bulgaria EAD. This looks like the post-integration public network surface: Bulsatcom's broadband account is increasingly tied to Vivacom's larger network, not only to AS50368.
The investment conclusion is not "Bulsatcom has two perfect networks." It is more modest. There is meaningful current network evidence both for the Bulsat Ltd. AS50368 record and for a Vivacom-Bulsatcom AS43205 operating profile. That evidence supports the network-resource topic and helps distinguish the company from thin entities whose only proof is a historic registration. The risk is that the evidence is split across old and new operating identities. A customer may experience Bulsatcom as a preserved brand, Vivacom as the support and billing platform, AS43205 as part of the network surface, and AS50368 as the older Bulsat Ltd. route object. That is normal during telecom integration, but it means the public evidence should be read as a transition map rather than a clean standalone network diagram.
The regulator data shows value and pressure at the same time
The Bulgarian Communications Regulation Commission's 2023 annual report gives the best independent market baseline. In fixed internet access at retail level, the main providers were Vivacom, A1 and Bulsatcom. The table in the report showed Vivacom at 32.2% of fixed-access subscribers and 28.8% of revenue in 2023; A1 at 28.4% of subscribers and 23.2% of revenue; and Bulsatcom at 5.4% of subscribers and 3.9% of revenue. The report also said Bulsatcom continued a negative trend in subscriber share and revenue share.
For bundled services, the same report said Vivacom, A1 and Yettel dominated, together accounting for 95.9% of market volume by revenue and 96.9% of subscribers in 2023, with Bulsatcom the only other undertaking above the small-provider group. Bulsatcom's bundled-service share was 1.4% by subscribers and 1.7% by revenue. For retail pay TV, CRC said the four undertakings that declared satellite TV service in Bulgaria in 2023 were Bulsatcom, Vivacom, A1 and Neosat. It also said Bulsatcom reported an 18% decline in pay-TV subscribers compared with the previous annual report, while revenue from the service grew by 1%. As a result, Bulsatcom was third-largest in retail pay TV in 2023, with 22.2% of subscribers and 26.0% of revenue. Vivacom led with 36.3% of subscribers and 32.7% of revenue, and A1 had 27.3% of subscribers and 28.9% of revenue.
These figures are the core of the research judgement. Bulsatcom was not irrelevant; it remained a large pay-TV operator and a visible fixed-internet provider. But the trend was unfavorable before the acquisition. That makes the United Group transaction easier to interpret. A shrinking independent base may be weak as a standalone story, especially after a history of financial restructuring. The same base may be strategically useful to a converged operator that wants more television customers, more broadband accounts, more content scale and more channels through which to defend households against A1 and Yettel.
The report also shows why Bulsatcom cannot be treated simply as a national champion. Bulgaria's fixed and pay-TV markets are not empty fields. Vivacom and A1 have much larger fixed-internet positions. Yettel is important in mobile and bundles. Many smaller providers remain present. For a household, this means the decision is not binary. The customer can choose Vivacom native services, A1 fixed or mobile-home internet, Yettel mobile and TV offers, local fibre providers, satellite TV, streaming-only content or a hybrid using mobile broadband as backup. Bulsatcom's value has to be found in the specific households where its installed service, familiar channels, local support history and migration benefits beat those alternatives.
Local support labour is the product when things fail
Local support labour is justified as a topic because the Bulsatcom account requires support channels, equipment replacement, business account handling and, historically, on-site engineering. The 2014 profile described own installation and technical-support services, on-site engineering, online support and call centres. Current official Bulsatcom customer notices preserved specific support and contact channels after the United Group and Vivacom transitions: phone numbers including *4800 and several city-code numbers, customer-service, support and sales email addresses, a contact form, online portal access and business-account representatives. Vivacom's Bulsatcom support page told customers to contact customer-service specialists for information, support or fault reporting through the current numbers. Vivacom's general internet technical-fault help page says customers should contact Vivacom when they have trouble using the service, that support is available around the clock, and that an on-site team visit can be arranged when necessary.
This is not proof that every repair is good. It is proof that the product requires a labour layer. A household bundle breaks in ways that pure cloud software does not. A receiver fails. A dish needs adjustment. A router has weak Wi-Fi. A fibre line has a fault. An EON login does not work. A customer migrates from the old portal to My Vivacom. A payment channel changes. A business customer wants an account manager rather than a general call centre. Every one of those cases turns the subscription into a support event.
The migration itself raises the labour burden. The November 2024 Vivacom page instructed Bulsatcom customers that the old online portal would remain available until 22 November 2024 and that after that date services should be managed through My Vivacom. It also told them payments would not be accepted through any channel on 23 and 24 November 2024, then would resume on 25 November through listed channels. It explained that customers would receive a new Vivacom client number and could learn it through an automated menu or in a Vivacom store. This is exactly where churn risk hides: a household that cannot pay, cannot find its account number or cannot get a repair answer may decide that the next bill should go to another operator.
Support labour is also a cost. In a low-ARPU household, one unnecessary truck roll can consume much of the account's margin. In a bundle, however, good support can prevent churn across multiple services at once. If a technician solves a TV problem, replaces a receiver, checks the router and leaves the household with working EON access, the visit protects a broader account. If the repair process is slow, the same visit becomes evidence that the household should switch to a mobile router, a national operator or a streaming-only setup.
The right way to grade the evidence is therefore positive but restrained. The current official materials support a local support labour topic because they preserve multiple contact routes, business representatives, fault reporting and Vivacom support escalation including potential on-site visits. They do not prove staffing levels, first-call resolution, field response times, customer satisfaction or outage frequency. A manager would still need complaint data, service-level statistics, technician capacity, regional office coverage and churn by fault reason before judging support quality.
Debt history explains why repair matters
Bulsatcom's operational transition cannot be separated from its financial history. In 2019, SeeNews reported that Bulsatcom had struggled to service debts and aimed to complete restructuring by the end of October of that year, raise about 30 million euro in fresh funds, and reduce liabilities by more than 80% to around 140 million levs. The same report connected the trouble to a 2015 decision to buy the Bulgaria Sat geostationary communications satellite, financed with 85 million euro from an international banking syndicate, followed by higher-than-expected costs, delivery delay, difficulty servicing debt, failure to make repayments due to the Export-Import Bank of the United States in June 2017, payment disputes with content providers, blocked cash over legal disputes and accumulating tax liabilities.
CEE Legal Matters reported in November 2019 that a consortium of lenders including Blantyre Capital, the EBRD and the Bulgarian Development Bank were advised on Bulsatcom's financial restructuring, involving enforcement by appropriation, restructuring of approximately 80 million euro of existing debt, settlement and restructuring of commercial debts above 200 million euro, and 30 million euro of new secured debt. In December 2022, the same publication reported the sale of Bulsatcom to Viva Corporate Bulgaria and said the sale marked successful completion of restructuring by senior secured lenders who had taken control of the group in August 2019. Bulsatcom later denied bankruptcy reports in 2022, according to Broadband TV News.
This history should not be written as a moral failing. Telecom networks and pay-TV platforms are capital-intensive. Satellite capacity, set-top boxes, content rights, fibre build, customer premises equipment and support networks all require money before the customer pays back the investment. Bulsatcom's difficulty shows what happens when an ambitious multi-service strategy runs into debt, content obligations and delayed infrastructure payoff. It also explains why a larger owner could see an opportunity: the customer base and assets may be valuable, but the standalone balance sheet and operating scale may be too weak to keep improving the product alone.
United Group's acquisition announcement in February 2024 framed the transaction as a chance to improve TV and internet quality for Bulsatcom customers. SeeNews reported the 2023 announcement with Vivacom CEO Nikolai Andreev saying Bulsatcom had gone through difficult times and was severely challenged by the economic environment, while the transaction could help the business recover and develop. That is a candid operating frame. The acquisition was not simply about buying a thriving independent competitor at its peak. It was about absorbing a challenged but still meaningful pay-TV and broadband provider into a larger platform.
The risk for customers is that recovery can look like consolidation. Bulsatcom accounts may receive better content, better broadband options, more shops and more robust support. They may also lose some of the old independent operator's flexibility, payment habits, plan availability or brand-specific attention. The December 2024 tariff caveat that offers were not available to new customers from 24 November 2024 is a small but telling sign: the old Bulsatcom retail architecture is being preserved for continuity, not necessarily promoted as a standalone future.
Competition is stronger than the old satellite moat
Bulsatcom's early moat was pay TV, especially satellite. That moat has thinned. CRC's report showed IPTV revenue overtaking satellite as the largest revenue component in the radio and TV programme distribution segment in 2023. Satellite TV revenue still mattered, but IPTV was growing faster. For a household, this means the value of a dish and receiver depends on content, price and reliability, not on scarcity of alternatives.
Vivacom, A1 and Yettel now pressure the Bulsatcom account from different sides. Vivacom's own EON packages combine TV, internet, mobile and fixed voice. A1's public internet page highlights internet-plus-TV, home internet, A1 Home Wi-Fi, Net Box mobile-network internet for homes outside fixed coverage, mobile internet and temporary reactivation after an unpaid bill. A1 also markets satellite television and Xplore TV. Yettel's Bulgarian business is backed by more than 3 million users and a network of more than 180 stores, according to e& PPF Telecom Group, while independent Opensignal reporting in January 2026 described a competitive Bulgarian mobile market in which A1 led speed awards, Yettel led time-on-network and reliability metrics, and Vivacom led coverage experience and 5G coverage experience.
Those substitutes matter at the point of failure. If a Bulsatcom receiver fails, the household can ask whether EON on a smart TV is easier. If optical internet is too slow, the household can compare Vivacom fibre, A1 fixed broadband, a local ISP or a 5G home-internet box. If content rights drive the bill upward, the household can combine mobile broadband with streaming services. If the household is in a rural or remote area, satellite may remain relevant, but mobile 4G and 5G home internet are increasingly part of the substitution set.
The competitive defence is convenience. Bulsatcom's old account becomes valuable if it can be repaired into a one-stop household bundle: current services preserved, richer EON content added, payment moved without chaos, support reachable, device replacement available and better broadband gradually offered. It becomes weak if each component pushes the customer to compare alternatives. A1 does not need to prove that every home should switch; it needs to offer enough credible internet-plus-TV and mobile-home substitutes that unhappy Bulsatcom customers have an obvious exit. Yettel does not need to own the fixed line in every building; it needs mobile reliability, stores and TV enough to challenge households that no longer want a legacy satellite account. Streaming services do not need a truck roll at all; they just need the customer to decide that broadband plus apps is easier than bundled pay TV.
This is why a headline speed war is not the whole story. Bulsatcom's historical optical tiers in the December 2024 PDF look modest next to Vivacom's 10GIGA claims or national gigabit marketing. But customers rarely choose only a maximum speed. They choose the service that works at their address, with equipment they understand, content they watch, a bill they can pay and repair support they trust. In that practical sense, a 100 Mbps or 200 Mbps legacy optical plan attached to a functioning TV bundle can still be sticky for some households. For new acquisitions, however, the old speed card is unlikely to be enough.
Content rights and equipment turn strategy into monthly friction
Pay-TV economics are content economics. Bulsatcom's older public profile emphasized premium movie and sport content, its own pay-TV channels and its own encryption system and set-top boxes. The 2014 profile talked about 100+ digital TV channels, major sport events and equipment manufacturing. The December 2024 tariff sheet listed TV plans with different channel counts, additional receivers, adult, sport, HBO, Cinemax, Diema Xtra and Max Sport Plus add-ons, and hotel television plans. Those details show the cost stack behind the monthly fee.
Every content right is a retention tool and a margin claim. Sports channels may keep customers who would otherwise cancel. Movie and premium packages may lift ARPU. Hotel plans may create business accounts. Additional receivers create multi-room stickiness. But every piece also requires licensing, device support, billing accuracy and customer communication. If a channel disappears or moves tier, the household experiences it as a loss even if the operator's wholesale cost increased. If an add-on is hard to activate or cancel, the support burden rises.
Equipment has the same double character. Bulsatcom's own history with set-top boxes and encryption gave it control over part of the customer experience. Control can reduce supplier dependence and create technical differentiation. It can also leave the operator with a long tail of installed receivers that must be supported, swapped or integrated with newer platforms. Vivacom's November 2024 support page promised Bulsatcom television customers free access to EON TV and EON Smart TV until plan or service change, while preserving online viewing access through b-box and IPTV links. That is a migration bridge. The old devices and platforms cannot disappear overnight; the new platform has to sit beside them long enough for customers to accept the change.
For a household, this is not a technology roadmap. It is whether the remote works, whether the app logs in, whether the child's channels are still present, whether sports are in the same package, whether the internet line is fast enough for streaming, and whether someone answers the phone when the screen goes blank. For the operator, it is a device-replacement curve, a licensing schedule, a customer-education task and a churn model.
The risk is support fragmentation. A customer with satellite TV, old Bulsatcom receiver, online b-box access, EON app access, optical internet and a new My Vivacom account may not know which layer has failed. A strong integration hides that complexity. A weak integration exposes it. That is why the public transition materials repeatedly mention continuity of services, channels, payments, contact routes and equipment. The company understood that the customer's tolerance for a broader bundle depends on operational repair, not on acquisition language.
The infrastructure deal shows why competitors objected
The Bulsatcom case also became a Bulgarian competition story. SeeNews reported in December 2022 that the Commission on Protection of Competition would examine the acquisition of Bulsatcom by Viva Corporate Bulgaria after Yettel Bulgaria and A1 Bulgaria raised concerns. The same report said the concerns included information that the acquisition was financed through a United Group loan and allegations that Bulsatcom's mobile and optical network had been transferred to entities linked to United Group to partly repay the loan. In November 2023, SeeNews reported that United Group agreed to acquire Bulsatcom, a satellite television and broadband internet provider founded in 2000 that served residential and business customers with DTH satellite TV, IPTV and broadband internet, and owned and operated its own fibre infrastructure and retail distribution network.
Competitors objected because the acquisition was not only a brand purchase. A1 argued in November 2023 that the deal could create unprecedented consolidation in the media and telecom market, and it pointed to potential market shares of 60% in TV services and 40% in internet services for Vivacom after the transaction. Telecoms.com likewise reported A1 and PPF concerns that United Group subsidiaries were adding Bulgarian telecom assets in a way that could create a dominant position. The exact competitive-law analysis belongs to regulators and courts, but the economic point is clear: Bulsatcom's value included customers, content distribution, fibre, towers, retail distribution and market share in a fragmented but consolidating sector.
The legal process continued beyond the operating acquisition. In February 2026, SeeNews reported that Bulgaria's Supreme Administrative Court issued a final ruling clearing United Group's acquisition of Bulsatcom telecom infrastructure assets after appeals from A1 Bulgaria, Yettel Bulgaria and CETIN Bulgaria. The court confirmed that the electronic communications network deal and base-station infrastructure-assets deal, as assessed by the competition authority, did not constitute a notifiable concentration under Bulgarian competition law, and that the ruling was final and not subject to appeal. Broadband TV News reported the same final ruling and said challengers had argued that November 2022 transactions should have been treated as a single operation requiring merger review.
For the household, this legal history only matters if it changes service. A customer does not pay a bill because a court defined a concentration. A customer pays if the bundle works. But the competition history explains why the customer account is strategic. In a market where Vivacom, A1 and Yettel fight across fixed broadband, mobile, TV and content, a base of Bulsatcom households can influence scale, churn, content bargaining and network utilisation. The asset is not only the old satellite platform. It is the ability to fold those households into a larger converged operator while preventing rivals from harvesting them.
What would change the judgement
Several facts would materially change the view of Bulsat Ltd. The first is the current retention rate of Bulsatcom customers after the 2024 and 2025 migrations. Public pages say services and prices were preserved, but they do not reveal churn, complaint rates, plan upgrades, EON activation rates or the share of customers who moved from legacy Bulsatcom plans into Vivacom packages. If churn is low and upgrade take-up is high, the acquisition is a repair success. If churn is concentrated among broadband households or satellite-TV households, the installed base may be less valuable than market share suggested.
The second is support performance. The public materials show multiple phone numbers, email addresses, contact forms, portals, customer-service specialists and on-site support when needed. They do not show average answer time, truck-roll completion time, device replacement rate, first-contact resolution, regional technician availability or whether support improved after Vivacom integration. Because the thesis depends on repairability, support metrics would change the conclusion more than another marketing page would.
The third is network integration. AS50368 remains visible in routing data, while AS43205 appears as Vivacom Bulgaria EAD-Bulsatcom with larger interconnection evidence. A future audit should track whether AS50368 remains active, whether more Bulsatcom traffic shifts into Vivacom network resources, whether AS43205 keeps its exchange presence and whether IPv6, peering and upstream diversity improve. Route data should be treated as evidence of operating surface, not proof of experience, but a disappearing route footprint would still matter.
The fourth is content economics. If EON access, new channels and Vivacom Arena materially improve perceived value, Bulsatcom's TV base has a migration path. If content costs rise faster than the customer base can absorb, or if streaming substitutes make the bundle feel unnecessary, the pay-TV component becomes a drag. The most important facts would be premium-package take-up, sports-rights churn, viewing hours and device usage across satellite receivers, b.box, IPTV and EON apps.
The fifth is the regulatory and competitive response. The February 2026 court ruling reduced uncertainty around infrastructure-assets review, but competition risk does not vanish. A1, Yettel and smaller providers can still compete aggressively by price, speed, mobile reliability, app quality, local service and content. If regulators revisit wholesale access, consumer switching rules, contract-indexation practices or pay-TV market concentration, the economics of the retained Bulsatcom base could shift again.
Bottom line
Bulsat Ltd. should be monitored as a regional ISP and pay-TV bundle case, not as a clean standalone growth story. The public evidence supports the category: current route visibility for AS50368, a separate Vivacom-Bulsatcom AS43205 interconnection profile, official Bulsatcom and Vivacom service-continuity pages, tariff evidence for television, optical internet and bundles, CRC market-share data, and acquisition history. The evidence also requires caution. Bulsatcom was losing fixed-internet and pay-TV share before the acquisition. Its debt and restructuring history was significant. Its old tariff architecture was preserved for existing users rather than offered to new customers after 24 November 2024. Its service quality cannot be inferred from route records or announcements.
The economic question is whether the installed household account can be repaired faster than it leaks. A Bulsatcom customer who keeps the television plan, receives EON access, maintains a familiar support route, pays through a new Vivacom channel and gets better broadband becomes a useful converged account. A customer who sees old hardware, confusing portals, changed payment rules, modest speeds and slow support becomes a switcher. That is the difference between a distressed pay-TV base and a defensible household bundle.
For Vivacom and United Group, the attraction is clear: more TV customers, more broadband accounts, more content scale, more retail reach and a chance to fold a legacy satellite operator into a larger fixed-mobile-content platform. For rivals, the concern is equally clear: the same repair process can deepen Vivacom's position in TV and fixed internet if too many former Bulsatcom customers stay. For customers, the test is simpler. Does the bundle work, can it be fixed, and is it still worth the monthly bill when A1, Yettel, local fibre, mobile broadband and streaming-only alternatives are one failed support call away? That is where Bulsat's future value will be decided.