CAS presses for more competition on telecom market

The Adam Smith Center (CAS), a think-tank promoting free market policies, is urging Poland's telecom regulator to allow new players to enter the mobile telecom market. If new operators fail to start up and force prices down, Poland will continue to have the lowest concentration of subscribers combined with the highest prices in the EU. Italy has the highest subscriber penetration with 95.6%, while Poland has 48.2%, by far among the worst, and almost 19 points behind Cyprus, which is second from bottom on the list. CAS warns that the rate of subscriber growth is slowing and unless something is done, Poland will not reach a penetration level of 80% before 2011. In purchasing power parity terms, mobile telephone connections in Poland are the most expensive among 30 OECD countries. Poland's Telecom and Postal Regulatory Office (URTiP) is to grant new UMTS and GSM licenses soon, which CAS sees as a good opportunity to introduce real competition to the market. "Operators have a considerable advantage over customers, which justifies excluding incumbent operators from the process of granting new licenses," says Michał Goliński from the Warsaw School of Economics (SGH). (Puls Biznesu, p. 8) T.J.