Interia.pl to sign ISP deal but not with Tel-Energo

Internet portal Interia.pl plans to sign a deal with a telecommunications company and become a Virtual Internet Service Provider. According to sources, and contrary to previous press reports, the company in question will not be Tel-Energo, as negotiations reached an impasse. "We are conducting talks with a number of operators. I think we will sign a deal in a month," said Interia.pl president Tomasz Jazdzynski. The so-called dial-up market in Poland is estimated at over zl. 500 million a year. Roughly zl. 470 million of this revenues is controlled by Telekomunikacja Polska. Another company willing to enter this market is portal Gazeta.pl, belonging to Agora, which plans to strike a deal in the first half of 2003. "According to estimations, about 60% of the country's Internet users connect to the web via dial-up connections," said Agora's head of Internet Projekt, Jan Jaworowski. (Parkiet, p. 4) M.M.