Netia, Dialog and ET team up to challenge TPSA

Poland's main alternative fixed-line call operators - Netia, Dialog and Elektrim Telekomunikacja (ET) - signed a co-operation agreement on Wednesday to team up against TPSA, which has a stranglehold on the 10-million-client fixed-line market. The three operators have licenses to operate in areas where roughly half of Poland's 40 million consumers live and analysts said they are in a good position to try to exploit the country's growing business client market. "Firstly, we will utilize our (existing) infrastructure. We want to lease our lines on a partnership basis. Also, we will co-operate to offer clients packages of telecom services," Dialog chief Katarzyna Muszkat told a news conference. The agreement also lays the groundwork for a potential tie-up between the three operators, which analysts believe would be risky given the sector's weak financial standing. The alternative operators said they would seek to take a slice of TPSA's international calls monopoly when the market opens up at the start of 2003, but the firms must first find a source of financing. "Perhaps co-operation will bring some savings", "but it will not cause any significant increase in their value," said an analyst at Erste Securities in Warsaw. "TPSA still has 93% of the market and whether it competes against three small rivals or one slightly bigger one will not change its situation by much," he added. (Reuters)