Mobile operators urged to adopt UMTS cooperation

The Telecommunications Regulatory Office (URT) is calling for cooperation among the country's mobile phone operators in the construction of the third generation UMTS network. The URT says that working together could save the three GSM operators, Polkomtel, PTC and Centertel, as much as $1 billion. "We are trying to convince the operators to cooperate in financing the huge costs of building the UMTS infrastructure. If they decide to do so, they will not only make huge savings, but also be ready sooner to introduce the commercial services of 3G," said Marek Rusin, deputy director of the URT. Analysts say that the poor state of the market may encourage the key strategic investors - Deutsche Telekom in the case of PTC, Vodafone and TeleDenmark in Polkomtel, and France Telecom and TPSA in Centertel - to consider the URT suggestion as a way of making much-needed savings. According to initial assessments PTC, the operator of Era GSM, is planning to spend $1.2 billion on its UMTS infrastructure. Centertel's spending on its Idea network is likely to be between $1.8 billion and $2.7 billion. (Puls Biznesu, p. 5) A.K.