The Polish government will accept tenders from local telephone operators in late May as part of its plan to bring competition to the telecommunications market, the telecommunications ministry said. The ministry plans to grant dozens of such licenses so that at least one local operator will compete with the state-owned telephone monopoly TPSA in each of the country’s 49 provinces. This would help achieve a strategic goal of boosting the number of telephones to more than 10m by the year 2000 from less than 6m last year. It would also mean doubling the number of telephones per 100 people to 30 from the current 15, one of the lowest in Europe. The two tenders, to be completed in August and September, would soon be followed by further ones, the ministry said. Winners of the telephone tenders would have no problems with TPSA, because new law obliges it to co-operate with local operators.
