PTK gets license, may provide free internet access for schools
Polska Telewizja Kablowa (PTK), the cable TV operator owned by Amsterdam-based United Pan-Europe Communications (UPC), received its national data transmission license last Thursday, said Marek Sowa, the deputy president for corporate affairs at UPC's operations in Poland.
For the average PTK subscriber, gaining the license means that data will be transmitted over the internet at eight to 10 times faster than through existing dial-up services. According to Przemyslaw Sypniewski, the adviser to the communications minister, who awarded the concession, UPC is to provide free internet access to schools. "We are now waiting for official confirmation, but I hope we will be able to say more about it (the free internet access) at the press conference next week," Sypniewski said Friday. But Sowa said offering schools internet access was discussed "some time ago" with the ministry. "We will certainly return to this subject, but it's premature to focus on that," he said. "(Last week) it was nothing more than just a topic during our conversation with the minister, and not a condition imposed on us, according to how we understood it."
PTK applied for the license on May 4, 1999. The operator has 1 million subscribers in Warsaw, Gdansk, Gdynia, Sopot, Szczecin, Lublin, Wroclaw, Katowice and Bydgoszcz, and is hoping to boost that number to 1.3 million. PTK's cable network in Warsaw and Krakow is already high-speed internet compatible. UPC said it would spend $100 million in modernizing PTK's cable network by the end of the year.
According to Sypniewski, there is a chance that next week the ministry will grant more concessions to applicants from the list of 28 local cable TV operators, some of which have been waiting for the ministry's decision for as long as three years. "Of course not all, but a few concessions will definitely be granted," he said. "And some companies will withdraw, others will try to join forces, otherwise they won't be able to afford the concession." Under the current law, local operators, even those with only several hundred subscribers, have to pay a lot of money for the concession, which covers an entire powiat.
PTK paid o882,000 for the concession.
