Telefonica backs out; Ministry goes ahead with tender

Despite Spanish Telefonica's last-minute decision on Friday to back out of Poland's third generation mobile telephone (UMTS) tender, in which the government had originally hoped to sell at least five UMTS permits at euro650 million each, the Telecoms Ministry has decided, for the time being at least, to go ahead with the auction. On Saturday, the deadline for submitting offers, PTK Centertel, followed by Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa (PTC) and Polkomtel, entered bids in the tender. "Three offers have been made in the five-license UMTS tender. Now the commission will begin the first stage of assessing applications... It will take several days, we are not surprised by the number of offers made, in Europe interest in UMTS is decreasing," said Miroslaw Marcinkiewicz, the Ministry's general director and head of the tender commission, during a press conference held at four o'clock Saturday afternoon, one hour after the deadline to submit bids. "It is still too early to say whether the tender will be called off. Our team has to evaluate the situation. An official decision will be made by the telecoms minister. All options are possible," said Marcinkiewicz. (Reuters, Rzeczpospolita, p.A1,B2)