Poland: GSM 1800 - two new ops?

Przemolog · **Poland: GSM 1800 - two new ops? -** 11-10-2007, 11:02

On 2nd Oct the Polish regulator UKE announced the winners for the last unused GSM1800 band 2 packets of 49 channels each. There were 2 previous tenders for those frequencies. In the first one there was no winner, in thesecond one state-owned Telekomunikacja Kolejowa (Railway Telecom) won but finally it withdrew because of financial reasons.

This year situation seems to be different. The winner was CenterNET SA, a regional Internet provider. However, it declared that it needed only one packet of channels. That's why another packet went to another in line, namely a mysterious company named Tolpis. There were rumors that this company was established by any of the "big three" ops in order to takeover the frequencies "indirectly" (Old ops were strongly "discriminated" in the tender in order to increase competition on the market). Today Tolpis (now named Mobyland) revealed itself. Its shareholders are: an Italian operator Eutelia, some investment funds and.... Railway Telecom

.

Whereas licences are valid countrywide, of course both winners declare not to cover the entire country, only the most populated areas so their strategies include national roaming with exisiting operators.

IMHO there's no much sense in creating two new not-quite-virtual

operators in the country with penetration rate >100%, but who knows...?

	(#1)
Przemolog (Offline) Senior Member Prepaid Guru Posts: 1,211 Join Date: 06 Feb 2005 Location: Swidnik-home, Lublin-work Country:	Poland: GSM 1800 - two new ops? - 11-10-2007, 11:02 On 2nd Oct the Polish regulator UKE announced the winners for the last unused GSM1800 band 2 packets of 49 channels each. There were 2 previous tenders for those frequencies. In the first one there was no winner, in thesecond one state-owned Telekomunikacja Kolejowa (Railway Telecom) won but finally it withdrew because of financial reasons. This year situation seems to be different. The winner was CenterNET SA, a regional Internet provider. However, it declared that it needed only one packet of channels. That's why another packet went to another in line, namely a mysterious company named Tolpis. There were rumors that this company was established by any of the "big three" ops in order to takeover the frequencies "indirectly" (Old ops were strongly "discriminated" in the tender in order to increase competition on the market). Today Tolpis (now named Mobyland) revealed itself. Its shareholders are: an Italian operator Eutelia, some investment funds and.... Railway Telecom . Whereas licences are valid countrywide, of course both winners declare not to cover the entire country, only the most populated areas so their strategies include national roaming with exisiting operators. IMHO there's no much sense in creating two new not-quite-virtual operators in the country with penetration rate >100%, but who knows...?