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Originally Posted by Motel75
I agree that TPSA being sold to France Telecom was a very bad idea; FT was itself (and is) another state-run, bureaucratic "national champion" that had nothing really to offer TPSA apart from a French-government-guaranteed cashflow. For many years, Poland had some of the highest telephone prices anywhere, simply because the government avoided introducing competition to "protect" TPSA, even though it ultimately sold it to France.
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It's "funny" that selling Polish companies to foreign state owners (like France Telecom or Electricite de France) was called "privatisation":P.
As to prices, basically you're right but those money were used also for modernisation of landline network. Telephone services until early 1990's were horrible here....
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Originally Posted by Motel75
Elektrim was an example of a Polish company that did have expertise in this area (and it still has influence in Era, as its consortium with Vivendi (again, same issues) has 51 percent of PTK, and thus can tell T-Mobile what to do).
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For at least two years there's a war between T-Mo and Vivendi/Elektrim to takeover PTC. I don't follow the details but it seems that T-Mo will be the winner...
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Originally Posted by Motel75
But the companies that own the rest of Polkomtel have nothing to do with telecommunications (coal, oil, steel);
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KGHM is copper (and silver) holding (not any steel
). And PSE (power lines operator, 17,56% shares of Polkomtel) has almost 95% shares of Exatel (formerly Telenergo),
a wholesale telecommunications operator.
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Originally Posted by Motel75
it's just an equity stake for them. In this context, the company would probably be better off in Vodafone's hands; at the very least they might do things such as make it possible to top up an account outside Poland, and end the incredibly stupid policy of having prepaid cards expire rapidly without frequent, relatively expensive topups, which is one of the best ways to lose a customer to the "competition" without winning new ones.
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Yes, buying top-ups in another country is a great feature. But even now, it's possible to top-up Simplus via SMS anywhere - it's necessary to register a credit/debit card to the specific number only...It's the only Polish prepaid with such a feature.
Polkomtel prepaids have the best expiration rules among Polish prepaids. After expiration of incoming calls, a 1-year "waiting period" starts in which no credit is lost and the SIM is theoretically "hybernated" but you can still receive calls. Sami Swoi has an 80 PLN top-up which extends the validity for outgoing calls by 7 months (11,43 PLN/month - the best offer on the market coupled with lowest national rates and free VM).
Of course, things can always be better but please don't tell that Voda would radically improve Plus offer.
Believe me - even now it's a very good offer as for such an underdeveloped country:P. As to
prepaids, Plus is the only one in Poland to offer:
- HSCSD
- 3G data transmissions/videocalls
- special SIM with low data rates
- e-mail2sms gateway
- free e-mail account with instant SMS notification
- PushToTalk
- SMS top-ups with direct charging the credit/debit card
- Pay4Me collect calls
- SMS to CDMA networks