Bulgaria's Communication Regulation Commission (CRC), under pressure to reveal the names of the 12 companies that put in bids for the fourth mobile licence in the country, published the list in a statement on its website.

CRC said that it published the names of the companies because of the increased public interest, having said earlier that it was forbidden by law to do so.

The companies that put in bids before the May 20 deadline are Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS, Max Telecom OOD, Carrier BG OOD, Trance Telecomm EAD, Spectrum Net AD, Handy-tel  EOOD, Artland EOOD, Velocity-eu OOD, Mobile Svyat EOOD, A i T Inc EOOD, Istochna Telecommunikacionna Companiya AD and Telko AG.

Only two of the companies are foreign - Turkish operator Turkcell and Liechtenstein-registered Telko AG.

According to experts quoted by Dnevnik daily, the participation in the auction is a question of money, which only few of the candidates had. CRC announced a fee for licence of 38-40 million leva, while people working in the telecommunication sector calculated that the future investments in the network would amount to about 80-100 million leva.