Polkomtel's UMTS tender draws near

At present the company is testing out various solutions in the center of Warsaw. The network has to be launched at the latest by January 1, 2006, as by the end of 2007 each of the three national GSM operators has to cover at least 20% of the country. According to Plus estimates, this would require constructing roughly 1,000 base stations for EUR 50,000 each. Polkomtel is currently offering services using EDGE technology, or so-called GSM 2 and 3/4 in the nine largest cities. The firm estimates that by 2005 some 25% of its revenues would be generated by data transmission, including third generation. (Rzeczpospolita, p. B5) M.M.