Mielec accepts bids for telecom project

The project could boost phone availability to 25,000 from 4,100 phone lines in this city of 60,000 residents in southeast Poland. The European Union's Phare program is funding two-thirds of the project, with the city contributing the remainder.
The project includes laying cable and building switching stations and a transmission system. It also will change the existing analog system to digital fiber optics.
Currently, state-run Telekomunikacja Polska SA (TPSA) and Centrala, a local private operator, administer the city's telephone lines. Both companies will continue to operate lines once the new lines are in. Centrala equipment director Roman Kwolek said his company was not interested in bidding for the project.
Kwolek said the company that won the contract to build the system would have to use equipment from Alcatel, Siemens or AT&T.
These big three equipment suppliers are all interested in bidding for the contract, said Wladyslaw Ortyl, Mielec Regional Development Agency president. Officials at AT&T would not say if they are bidding, only that they do hope to supply the equipment for the project. Alcatel and Siemens said this is the kind of project in which they often participate but would not say if they are bidding in this particular project.
Companies must submit their cost estimates in sealed envelopes.
"Centrala probably has some positive influence in who gets the tender," Ortyl said, referring to Centrala's role in the tender as future operators. But Radoslaw Piontek, the program officer of Phare, said it is very important that the operating companies have no sway in the tender process. "There should be open, equal competition," he said. Phare will have an observer during the tender process.
The project in Mielec is unusual for Phare, because the proposal originated at a Rzeszow region steering committee and was then sent to the office in Warsaw. It's part of a new trend in Phare to finance more projects in the countryside based on proposals from the local level.
Telecommunication companies of any size and country can submit an offer for tender, as long as they are registered with the Central Consulting Register in Brussels.
Firms interested in the tender must have their bids in to the city investor's office by Oct. 11 for the opening of the sealed envelopes on Oct. 12. City officials hope the project will be completed by May 1996.