Should the price of local calls go up and international ones go down?

Analysts think that rates of local calls are too cheap, while international and mobile connections are too expensive and that the liberalization of the telecom sector is being carried out too slow. "Calls to mobile networks are 40% higher than the European average, while international calls are two to four times more expensive than the EU average," said Jerzy Kubasik during the III Symposium of Telecom World. He argues that local calls are 33% below the European average. "Around 77 companies have licenses for fixed-line telephony, but in real terms they have no market power. TPSA still controls 90% of the market," said deputy president of the Competition and Consumer Protection Office Elżbieta Ostrowska. She believes that liberalization of the telecoms market has been successfully blocked by TPSA, but this is likely to change due to the increasing popularity of mobile telephony. (www.onet.pl) M.M.