Some of our
colleagues met you three years ago, now looking
back at those three years what are the major
changes that have occurred on the ICT market
of the Czech Republic?
First of all I want to mention the national
policy that was just adopted in 1999 in
the telecom sector. It included many new
ideas, like the opening of the market, introduction
of universal service and establishment of
the independent regulatory authority, and
in the future of a top level ICT ministry
that would be responsible for communication
and the information society. Most of these
things have been accomplished, and some
of them are still in the preparatory process.
The parliament has just approved the proposal
of Minister of Informatics Mr. Mlynár
to change the competencies among ministries.
According to that from the 1st of January
2003, the department responsible for communication
from the Ministry of Transport and Communications
will be merged with the Office for Public
Information Systems. All that was announced
back in 1999, and now it is done and I think
we have done a very good job. The telecom
sector is fully liberalized, there are transparent
conditions for everybody who is on the market,
we are now in line with EU legislation,
we are now preparing competitive conditions
for other alternative operators to enable
them acess to subscribers. And it is now
that we prepared a small amendment to the
telecommunications act from the year 2000,
and immediately we have started to implement
a group of new directives, a new framework
for the telecom sector, as you know this
is a very turbulent sector, the conditions
are changing on a daily basis. You have
to prepare them step by step, it is a long
process and it's like a never-ending story.
In 1982 for instance nobody could foresee
that we would soon have mobile communication,
or when we issued the first GSM licence
in 1996, nobody knew that in 5 years we
would have more then an 80% increase in
the numbers of SMS. It is a little bit "awful",
especially in the case of the young people.
I have two sons and I always tell them:
"How is it possible you are sending
maybe 20 or 30 SMS a day". I use that
system too, I send SMS to my Minister, to
the government, because it is easier to
send the information about the current situation
to these people or to answer their questions.
Regarding the information society, the Office
for Public Information Systems have achieved
many things in the e-Europe+ initiative,
especially in the terms of the eGovernment,
and also eBanking, eCommerce; and now there
are many eBusinesses covered by the municipalities,
by other offices, because the infrastructure
is very good here. When the Government of
the Czech Republic, approved the privatization
plan of the operator in 1995 we sold 27%
of the shares to our strategic partner,
SwisscOM and KPN for over 130 billion crowns.
The company used all the money for re-structuring
and investments in infrastructure. I think
it was a very good deal, the company now
is having modern infrastructure and is using
mainly optical fiber cables, new exchanges
and in June this year the network was fully
digitalized.
How is this exactly bringing the Czech
Republic closer to the EU market or to the,
global information society?
I think it is helping us to get closer.
I cannot say that it is only European, it
is a little bit different from Europe and
the approach of the US. All these eThings,
information society and so on, do not have
a very developed applications, they are
using different means to transport information
but I think we have to find a consensus
among all these parties. There are some
things that we are ahead of other countries
in eBusiness, like the use of the digital
signature or authorisation of the signature.
The eBusiness and eCommerce in the US has
become a daily business now, but not in
European countries, mainly because they
are concerned with the safety of the system.
I think it is a very important issue that
needs to be sorted out. It has to be absolutely
safe and it has to be set by the government,
by the states, it is a very sensitive issue,
and it is maybe a politically sensitive
issue.
Talking about all these changes in the
telecom market, what do you see as the main
priority, and what is needed to be done
in the next months?
For me the most important priority is to prepare
the Czech Republic for the accession into
the EU. It is the priority number one and
it has to be fulfilled in a short time. We
are trying hard, I don't have too many people
here in the ministry, but we had maybe three
times a week a meeting regarding the new legislation,
about the new directives to prepare such a
proposal until the end of September. It is
a very short time, because the last telecom
act had been prepared in 20 months. It is
a never-ending discussion with the private
sector, with the industry, with the operators,
etc. It is very difficult to set up a consensus
among all these parties on the market and
now we have the independent regulatory authority
and they are trying to do much more for this
purpose and for this new act on electronic
communications. |
How will your entrance in the EU change
the market?
I don't think that there will be such a big
impact on the current situation, because the
Czech market is open already, there are many
national providers, many service providers
from abroad, international companies and we
have no problems. I think it is prepared,
the conditions and the legislation are transparent.
It is maybe more difficult to set up a consensus
among all parties on the market according
to the act in this legislative framework.
Now, the next challenge is the privatization
of the dominant operator, because the government
decided to sell 51% of its shares. It was
very difficult because of the situation on
the telecom market, we have the BS licences,
that are very expensive and it was very difficult,
but now I think until the end of October an
agreement might be signed by the new company
Veda. It is a consortium of Deutsche Bank
and Tele Denmark, the same like in CESKE RADIOKOMUNIKACE,
Inc.
That means that CESKY TELECOM, Inc.
will become private?
Yes, I hope. After this period of two years,
I don't want to say it in advance, because
the agreement might be signed later.
What changes will this bring for the
Czech customers, on the level of private
users?
I think that the period of decreasing prices
is over. The important thing now is to prepare
new services and new offers for the different
groups of subscribers, like the elderly,
the younger people, families with studying
childern, the spectrum of these users is
very different. It is a marketing tool to
approach from the operators to prepare proposals
for the different groups of subscribers.
This is going to be the trend for the years
to come they will have to offer good services
for reasonable prices. Also they will have
to include new services, for instance we
suppose to bring competition to the market
to the local loop and the Czech Republic
issued 2 years ago six licences for wireless
acess. It wasn't so successful and there
are only few, maybe 30 subscribers, who
are using this kind of access to the Internet.
In the US or Belgium many subscribers are
using their cabel TV, in the Czech Republic
it is only 20%. These are good indicators
for us for the future.
How do you expect this to develop and
most importantly what are your expectations
regarding growth?
I think that we have maybe the advantage
in comparison with western countries because
we are still a little bit behind these countries
and I think it will remain on this level
for a while. You know also, and it is the
experience from the western countries, there
have been many, many new companies, which
are starting with telecom business. There
is a very hectic development of the sector.
You mentioned that preparing the Czech
Republic for the European Union is the major
task, how are you cooperating with the European
Union member countries and especially with
France to make the improvements?
Mainly I had very good relations with ATTA.
When I started in the Ministry in 1991 there
was the general manager from France Telecom
with whom I worked a lot. He was involved
in the mobile communication sector in the
Czech Republic and after that he was in
Poland and I think he ended up in the Slovak
Republic. We were very surprised that French
companies weren't interested in the privatisation
of CESKY TELECOM, Inc. because of financial
problems, after the sale of UMTS licences.
It is very difficult for these large companies
in Europe to start with investments in another
country, because their priorities are different
and they need a lot of money to launch operations.
Looking back, you have been in the Ministry
about for ten years now, what is your major
achievement in the ministry?
I started in 1991, right after the revolution,
before that I was in the telecom sector in
the technical development, in installations.
I changed my profession many times because
I spent two years in the federal ministry,
after that two years in the Czech Ministry,
two years as a director general of CESKY TELECOM,
Inc. the dominant operator, after that two
years as a telecom regulator and now four
years here in this position. I have spent
in the telecom sector all my life. I think
the major advantage of our country is the
good communication system, very good infrastructure
and very good mobile communications now. It
seems to me that my colleagues from countries
like Hungary, Poland and from western countries
are impressed with the development of the
communications in the Czech Republic in this
short time. I am happy for that. And now as
I mentioned the Czech Republic was elected
to the council of the ITU and I think it is
the fair decision because we are a small country,
in the middle of Europe, with only 10 million
inhabitans and we are starting to be in the
international field of telecomunications,
so I think it is a very important step ahead.
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V.I.P. INTERVIEWS
