Cesky Telecom announced that over 200k customers are subscribing to either CT’s ADSL (157k) or Eurotel’s CDMA (over 48k) high-speed Internet access. Note that the number of ADSL customers stood at 127k and the number of CDMA customers at 43k at the end of 1q2005. We see the trend in the increasing number of high-speed Internet subscribers as positive given the fact that Internet access is one of the few areas of growth for telecom.
At the same time, T-Mobile CT, the number 2 operator, will launch data services via UMTS (3G) as early as this year to compete with CT’s fixed line ADSL and Eurotel’s CDMA. Note that Eurotel and T-Mobile CR are required by the law to launch UMTS by January 2007 in the Prague area only.