Oftel's work on the Twinning Project in Poland is nearly complet. Since the Project began in September 2000, the team has held over 50 workshops in Poland involving the participation of more than 30 Oftel and Radiocommunications Agency staff and 15 staff from Swedish Regulator PTS working with groups of between five and 30 Polish participants at any one time.

Workshops have covered the full range of regulatory issues including interconnection, cost accounting, licensing, universal service, billing, numbering, market monitoring, communication strategies, organisational issues, consumer affairs, dealing with emergency situations and broadcasting. The workshops have been attended by a variety of Polish staff from the Regulator, various Ministries, consumer groups and, in a few specific instances, telecoms operators -a breakthrough in terms of transparency of regulation.

Although much of the Project has focused on raising awareness of the principles underlying regulatory issues, the team hasalso worked with the Polish telecoms regulator URT on a number of specific applications of these principles.

In February 2001, the teamhelped with the issue of Poland's first ever telecoms licence, for the incumbent operator TPSA, while more recently it was involved in determining TPSA to have significant market power and identifying the appropriate obligations that should consequently be imposed. The team has also advised on the introduction of competition in the market for long-distance telephony in Poland and on significant reductions in interconnection rates, which are now amongst the lowest of all the Accession Countries.

Oftel staff involved in the Project have found the work challenging and enjoyable. The Project has offered Oftel's visiting experts the opportunity to go back to first principles on some fundamental aspects of telecoms regulation that were resolved in the UK a number of years ago. By contrast the Project also embraces new developments like the EU Framework which are nearly as new to Oftel's experts as to Oftel's Polish colleagues. Poland is facing a steep learning curve, implementing in just a few years a regulatory regime which has evolved over a much longer period in Member States.

The Project was due to finish at the end of February and the team is confident that most of the key project objectives have been achieved. However, at the request of the Polish Authorities, and with the support of the European Commission, it now seems likely that the project will be extended until the end of June 2002. This will give the Project the opportunity to advise on the establishment of a postal regulator, one of the key deliverables of the Project. The new Polish Government has announced its intention to achieve this by 1 April 2002 through the establishment of an enlarged Regulator covering the postal sector as well as telecoms and radio. The extension will also allow the project team to continue to provide valuable ongoing support on a variety of key issues currently impacting on the telecoms, radio and postal sectors in Poland.

The Twinning Project is funded by the European Union and aims to help the Polish Government adopt the requirements of the European Community (the "Acquis") in the telecoms, radio and postal sectors, in order to prepare for Poland's accession to the European Union.

Oftel is leading the Project, with assistance from the Swedish Regulatory Authority, PTS, which is supplying postal expertise, and the UK Radiocommunications Agency (RA). Oftel's Chris Woolford has been based in Warsaw for the past 16 months as Pre-Accession Adviser, with responsibility for co-ordinating project activities.

For further information contact Paul Lonsdale (tel: 020 7634 8866 / e-mail@ paul.lonsdale@oftel.gov.uk).