Finland's Eltel Networks has been a runaway success by any measure. Finnish and Swedish power companies focused on generation, while telecommunications corporations strove to maintain services when the two countries joined the EU.

This opened up a new market for services connected with constructing, modernizing, developing and maintaining electricity and telecommunications grids. Eltel Networks was one of the first operators to provide services to both sectors. The company has since expanded beyond Finland and Sweden to establish itself in Norway, Denmark, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Germany and Russia. Eltel has also notched up quite a few infrastructure projects in Africa, Asia and Central America. The combined power lines serviced by the company would be longer than the equator if laid out end to end. Eltel employs more than 8,000 people, and its 2007 sales are expected to exceed 800 million euros.

Eltel Networks is Finland's largest employer in Poland. The company has been investing here since 2003 and now has five subsidiaries:

• Eltel Networks Olsztyn S.A. services Poland's power supply market
• Eltel Networks Telecom Sp. z o.o. provides the services and equipment needed to construct and maintain Poland's telecommunications infrastructure
• Energoprojekt Kraków S.A. is the company's Polish designing and engineering center
• Eltel Networks S.A. services Telekomunikacja Polska's 3 million customers
• Eltel Networks Telekomunikacja Energetyczna Sp. z o.o. provides telecommunications services to the power sector

Together these companies employ 2,600 people and their combined sales are expected to exceed zl.300 million this year.
Telekomunikacja Polska, PTK Centertel (Orange), PTC (Era), Polkomtel, Nokia, Siemens, Huawei, Nortel, Alcatel, PSE-Operator, Polska Grupa Elektroenergetyczna and power distribution utilities are among Eltel's major clients in Poland.


Jan Piotrowski, general manager of Eltel Group Corporation Poland, talks to the Voice.

Eltel has been operating in Poland for over four years now. Did the company make the right decision in coming here?
We expected demand for the sorts of products and services we provide to take off in Poland as the country's breakneck development was leaving its power grid crying out for modernization and development. And our predictions were fully realized. Eltel is busy building and upgrading transmission lines, power stations and the country's telecommunications infrastructure.

The expansion of UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) technology and broadband internet access is creating a lot of opportunities for us in Poland.

Are you planning to invest more here?
The Polish market is large; it's expanding rapidly and there's still a lot of room for growth. We're going to be Telekomunikacja Polska's major service partner once we finalize the purchase of the TKC company in December. TKC employs some 600 people and services about a million Telekomunikacja Polska subscribers. We're planning to buy into another power sector service provider early next year. We want to be the first port of call for operators from the telecommunications and power sectors when it comes to construction, maintenance and servicing.

How does your company benefit the Polish economy?
Poland has gained a reliable contractor able to carry out major turnkey projects on account of its strength, its quality of service delivery and its use of state-of-the-art technology that has been tried and tested on other markets.

Eltel is continuing to expand rapidly, especially in Poland. What do you put this down to?
There is a demand for the services we provide from major operators looking for reliable partners to implement turnkey projects. Operators also find it profitable to outsource services such as maintaining technical infrastructure.

You have a reputation as a very good employer here in Poland. How did this come about?
We do not buy companies simply to lay off staff. We want to make them even stronger and grow with them. Our first acquisition, Zakład Wykonawstwa Sieci Elektrycznych Olsztyn, employed 180 people when we took it over. Today it has a staff of 315. We create new jobs and guarantee stable employment and professional training for all our staff. We also offer temporary positions in other, mainly Scandinavian, countries and pay according to local standards. More than a hundred workers from our Olsztyn subsidiary have had contracts of this kind.