TK's mobile bid goes off the rails

TK is the telecoms arm of Polish State Railways, and it recently won a tender for new GSM frequencies, with a bid worth zł.510 million. This would have made it Poland's fourth mobile operator. However, it has decided not to pursue the deal. The company is remaining tight lipped, but its parent company is strapped for cash and the new venture would take considerable investment.

The government will now launch a new tender in early July, after consultations with market participants. TK had beaten off competing bids from Centertel, a unit of TP SA, and Dialog, metals group KGHM's fixed-line subsidiary. There are two other firms currently operating on the mobile market. Polkomtel is partly owned by Vodafone, Denmark's TDC and several state-owned companies, while PTC is owned by France's Vivendi and Deutsche Telekom. P4, an affiliate of fixed-line operator Netia, will also enter the UMTS standard services market later this year.

The Polish telecoms market is highly competitive but promising, According to a recent report by IT and telecoms research firm Analysys, the Central and Eastern European mobile market will grow by more than 10 percent per year to reach EUR 58.4 (zł.231) billion in 2011.

"Low fixed-line penetration in the region means that mobile networks provide a viable alternative to ADSL for many subscribers - in some cases a wireless solution is the only broadband access option," says Alex Zadvorny, the report's co-author. (Reuters)