Circling the Wagons

The proposed integration with the European Union, and its declaration of broad competition in the telecommunications field by the turn of the century for EU's member states, will force TPSA to change rapidly, or lose market share rapidly.
The Global Systems Mobile consortia are racing to get into TPSA's own green pastures, promising mobile services by November. Though they must now connect through TPSA, their mere presence will put downward pressure on telecom tariff charges overall - and particular pressure on Centertel, the mobile radiotelephone in which TPSA has a 51% stake. At least one GSM consortium, which will offer a digital phone service, has already promised to undercut Centertel's current rates for its analog service.
And other ancillary services of TPSA, such as data transmission and Internet connection provision, are under attack by scrappy upstarts.
As if that were not enough, France Telecom and Ameritech, two of TPSA's partners in the Centertel venture, are suing for $500 million each for alleged violation of an earlier contract. (Expect to see, sometime towards the end of this century, a face-saving settlement in favor of the litigants.)
Yet the siege mentality is hardly apparent at TPSA, and getting the state's cash cow to move more quickly is not an easy task.
Bloated with 73,000 staff and $1.5 billion in 1994 sales, the monopoly trundles along, delivering hilarious service (if you're lucky enough to have service) at absurd prices.
Maybe this is why the Ministry of Privatization under Mr. Wieslaw Kaczmarek has re-announced the "privatization" of the monopoly.
Keenly aware that people are hard to change, Kaczmarek knows that he has to change the people, which can only be done by bringing in new owners. And we are keenly awaiting that process to begin.