Witold GraboÅ›, the head of the recently formed watchdog for telecommunications and postal services URTiP has put back the introduction of UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) by another year.
The regulator has also followed the example of his counterparts in other countries by accepting the request of the existing cellular operators to run third generation services.
This means that UMTS will not be introduced until 2004 and more likely not until 2005.
The kick off date has been set for 1 January 2004.
By that time the operators had to cover twenty percent of the population in their UMTS network and by 2007 forty percent of the population.
All of these dates have been put back by one year.
The requests to put back the start date of UMTS were caused by a lack of third generation infrastructure and by the fact that its technology is still not compatible with existing systems.
Apart from that, the process of several competing companies building together and sharing equipment has still not been resolved and nearly all European watchdogs have accepted the difficulties involved and given the telecos more time to get this sorted out.
However the best news for the Polish operators is that they can study the experiences of telecos in western Europe and learn from their mistakes.
Furthermore it will also give them more time to get the necessary cash together.
All this will hopefully mean that the cost of running UMTS will be a lot cheaper.