GSM operators make gains as TPSA loses customers

If current trends continue, by the end of this year the number of mobile telephone users will exceed that of subscribers to the leading domestic fixed-line telecom operator, TPSA. In the first three months of 2001, Poland's three GSM operators acquired almost 900,000 new customers. As a result of this month's rise in TPSA subscription charges, some cellular telephone services are now cheaper than those offered by the fixed-line telephone giant. Although TPSA has not revealed the number of customers it has lost, it is alleged that last year increasing numbers of TPSA subscribers, many of them in Eastern Poland, closed their accounts because they could not afford the high costs. (Prawo I Gospodarka, 5-6 May, p. 1-2) M. S.-C.