The transport minister, Jaromir Schling, said yesterday that the agreement between TelSource and the government, that they will sell their Cesky Telecom stakes jointly, remains in place. The government had questioned TelSource’s strategy after TelSource was reported to be considering teaming up with a financial investor in the Cesky Telecom tender. Neutral.
Also, Cesky Telecom said yesterday that the number of fixed-line clients that have switched from the standard tariff package to new packages has reached 320,000 (i.e., 8.4% of the client base). Most of these have switched to a package with a lower monthly subscription fee, in response to a major increase in the monthly fee in the standard tariff as of February 2002. The company did not release the number of those who canceled their Cesky Telecom line. The 320,000 figure corresponds to the scale of program-switching that was reported in early January, hence we treat the information as neutral.
(Ondrej Datka)