Szyszko to go on UMTS road show
Communications Minister Tomasz Szyszko will visit telecom companies in several European capitals when he goes on a whirlwind road show this week.
The aim of the visits will be to rally prospective bidders to participate in Poland's tender for universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) licenses, insiders said.
The minister will meet with mobile company Sonera in Helsinki, telecom and utilities conglomerate Vivendi in Paris and Telecom Italia Mobile in Rome, said Przemyslaw Sypniewski, an adviser to Szyszko.
Marek Podhorecki, a telecommunications consultant, said Szyszko's scheduler confirmed that last-minute stops were made to telecom and IT firm Telenor in Oslo, Telia in Stockholm and Spanish giant Telefonica in Madrid.
Sypniewski said the minister would discuss the tender's requirements and procedures with the prospective bidders. Podhorecki said that an entourage of attorneys and other officials would accompany the minister to discuss some of the tender's "sticky legal issues" with top-level people at the three European firms. One topic would be the provision in the current telecom law, which stipulates that any foreign company which operates a telecom-related service in Poland must have 51% Polish ownership and put Poles on its supervisory and management boards, he added.
Szyszko would also discuss the controversial payment schedule for the license fees, Podhorecki said. According to the official terms of the tender, UMTS license winners must pay half their license fees by March 1, 2001, and the other half in five 10% installments between 2006 and 2010.
Anna Staniszewska contributed to this article.
