January
2001
Czech Republic
Master Report
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Czech Republic Master Report |
This Master Report covers the whole period of the ESIS project surveying the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe, March 1999 - January 2001 inclusive.
1. Introduction and Summary
The Czech Republic started to deal with IS issues on a governmental level only in late 1998, when it started forming specialized bodies (Governmental Council for State Information Policy, Permanent working group, Czech Forum for Information Society, Office for Public Information Systems). Subsequently, national strategies were elaborated (State Information Policy, Action Plan, Concept of SIP in Education, Public-Private Partnership) and new IS-related laws were prepared and enacted (on personal data protection, on electronic signatures, on public administration information systems etc.). Also, a Cabinet member was charged with IS issues.
Meanwhile, telecommunications evolved on their own, with a separate strategy (National Telecommunications Policy), almost unrelated to the national IS strategy. The local telecommunications market opens on January 1st, 2001, but competition, higher availability of services and price reductions are still to come.
2. Information Society Policy
The Czech Republic has an IS Policy (since May 1999) and a project-oriented Action plan (since May 2000). It also has a separate Telecommunications policy. Educational issues are handled by a separate "Concept of State information policy in education" document (April 2000).
2.1 Historical overview and general legislation
The Czech Republic started to deal with IS issues on governmental level only in the mid-late 90's, when specific bodies were formed and work started on the preparation of IS-related legislation.
2.2 Umbrella Policies and national IS strategy
The Czech government expressed its vision of an information society in its strategic document "The State Information Policy - The road towards an information society" (approved in May 1999). It specifies the following specifies the following eight basic priorities:
This basic strategy was complemented by a separate document dealing with educational issues - the Concept of State information Policy in education (approved by the Cabinet in April 2000). This strategic document deals with the following issues:
Implementation issues of both these strategies are covered by the Action plan (Action Plan for implementing the State information Policy, approved by the Cabinet in May 2000.) The Action Plan is project-oriented, contains 33 projects by 24 subjects (mainly ministries and state authorities) and covers the following areas and sub-areas:
- Information literacy
- Public information services – Libraries
- Education of civil servants
- The green book on electronic trade
- Accreditation infrastructure
- Information systems projects of state and autonomy administration
Previously, the Action plan was intended to be "static", giving precise deadlines and allocating necessary resources. Now it is only a list of priorities and mechanisms that can flexibly react to changing developments in the area of financing. Some of the projects already started in year 2000, but most of them are awaiting funds from the state budget and will really start in 2001.
During the third quarter of 2000, a significant change in implementing the national IS strategy occurred. Previously, the whole area of information society and its implementation were considered to be only a matter of state authorities (and the state budget) and no involvement of the public sector was expected - there was no formal provision for joining the forces of the private and state sector. At the end of August, Mr. Karel Brezina, minister "sans portefei" (charged with IT and IS), issued a proposal named PPP (Public-Private Partnership). In it, he asks the private sector to join forces with the state and help speed up the implementation of the State information policy.
2.3 IS Application Areas (general overview)
The Czech IS strategy gives much attention to applying modern IS technologies and solutions to administrations (national, regional and even local). It also pays due attention to educational and IS literacy issues, but less attention is given to e-commerce issues. Almost no explicit interest is given to telecommunications and to the liberalization of the telecommunications market. This can be explained by the fact that information society issues and telecommunications issues are considered to be separate problems and are dealt with by separate strategies: the "State information policy" deals with IS issues, while the "National telecommunications Policy" deals with telecommunications issues. The level of inter-relation of these strategies is very low - the State Information Policy does not deal with issues like cheap Internet access, does not formulate cheap Internet access as one of its priorities, and only builds on the expectation that tariffs will decrease as the result of liberalizing the telecommunications market.
2.4 Government and administration (national, regional, local)
The most important issue in applying IS to state administration is the architecture of their information system. Should it be built from scratch as a new and homogeneous system? Or should it be built as a heterogeneous interconnection of already existing information systems? Previously, the first approach was considered as the best - and the Office for the State information system was established on the basis of such an approach. Later, as a consequence of the State information policy, the first approach was abandoned and the second approach was enforced. This resulted in the following major steps:
Most of the tasks that need to be completed in the area of government and administration are included (as projects) in the Action plan, for example:
One specific activity that was already undertaken in the area of public administration is the establishment of a Central address: two new laws, on public tenders (Act 28/2000 Sb.), and on auctions (Act 26/2000 Sb.), enacted on June 1st, 2000, require the authors of important documents (for example: public tenders, auctions etc.) to publish them also on-line, on a "central address" (technically a single and a priori known location on the Internet). On May 31st, the Czech government decided to appoint the Czech Post (Ceska posta) to be the keeper of the "central address" (at http://www.centralni-adresa.cz). On July 31st, the Central address went into operation, publishing information on public tenders, and since September 1st, 2000 it also publishes data about auctions.
2.5 Telecommunications and Internet
According to a governmental decision in 1994 (the Main principles of telecommunications policy), the Czech telecommunications market was to be gradually liberated. Voice services were a notable exception, in 1994 the government decided to keep the market closed until the end of year 2000 (and grant exclusivity for voice services to state-owned SPT Telecom).
In April 1999 the Cabinet approved the National Telecommunication Policy of the Czech Republic (NTP), prepared by the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications. This strategic document confirmed the previous decision to liberalize voice services (and thus open the whole telecommunications market) by the end of year 2000 (i.e. starting January 1st, 2001). The NTP specifically aims at providing non-discriminatory and transparent conditions for operators on the telecommunications market, and wants to achieve its goals through:
Following the NTP, a new Act on telecommunications was prepared by the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications, passed for approval to the Cabinet and later to the Parliament. During the approval phases, some important changes were introduced - mainly the postponement of carrier selection and number portability. The first version of the new Act, prepared by the ministry, intended to open the telecommunications market fully, including carrier selection and number portability, by January 1st, 2001 (this meant an obligation for the incumbent to offer carrier selection and number portability in its networks starting by the same date). Before entering the Parliament, the proposed new Act contained a postponement of this obligation until year 2003.
The issue of carrier selection and number portability provoked much controversy and was widely debated. The Chamber of deputies of the Parliament approved a slightly modified version stating that carrier pre-selection and number portability should be available, in the networks of dominant operators of fixed voice networks, (not later than) by end of 2002, and call-by-call carrier selection by mid-2002. The Senate later shortened the time schedules by 6 month, but its decision was over voted by the Chamber of deputies. The new Act on communications was enacted on July 1st, 2000, as Act No. 151/2000 Coll.
The result is that on January 1st, 2001, the Czech telecommunications market will be liberalized (with the already mentioned exception of carrier selection and number portability). Since the enactment of the new law, alternative operators were able to apply for necessary licenses and obtain them (valid from January 1st, 2001).
Internet services are liberalized since mid 1995, when Eurotel (a PDN operator, but not an Internet provider) lost its exclusive license on data public data services. Since then, other operators were able to obtain licenses and become Internet providers (individual licenses were later substituted by a general license issued by the Czech telecommunications office). By end of year 2000, competition in providing Internet services was quite high (and pressure on lowering prices due to competition existed) - but with the notable exception of dial-up access. Here the market is still in the hands of one single operator, SPT Telecom (on January 1st, 2000 renamed to Czech Telecom), with exclusivity on voice services. Consequently, dial-up access prices are quite high - according to the latest OECD Internet Access Price Comparisons, http://www.oecd.org/dsti/sti/it/, the access basket in PPP (Parity of Purchasing Power) was the second highest among OECD countries.
As stated previously, the national IS strategy (State Information Policy) does not deal explicitly with telecommunications issues and does not have cheap Internet access as a priority. It mentions the National telecommunications policy and builds on the expectation that with liberalization, access prices will fall.
2.6 Electronic Commerce
On June 16th, 1999, the Cabinet specified a framework of measures to support e-commerce (Resolution no. 604/1999). In January 2000 the Cabinet approved draft Basic Measures for the Support of E-Commerce in the Czech Republic (Resolution no. 56 of January 12, 2000). The cabinet also assigned the area of electronic commerce to the competencies the Governmental committee for State information policy, and ordered it to produce a plan of activities aimed at developing e-commerce in the Czech Republic (Navrh reseni zakladnich opatreni na podporu rozvoje elektronickeho obchodu CR) by end of March 2000.
On February 28th, 2000, the government decided to incorporate this plan into the Action Plan for the implementation of the State Information Policy (and this Action Plan was approved on May 31st, 2000).
The Action plan contains two specific e-commerce projects:
A very important development related to e-commerce occurred on October 1st, 2000, when the Act on electronic signatures was enacted (as Act No. 227/2000 Coll.). This Act creates the basic framework for use of electronic signatures, including the use of certificates, certification services and certification authorities. The Act assigned relevant competencies to the Office for Protection of Personal Data. The Act is fully compliant with the relevant EU directives on electronic signatures.
By the end of year 2000, according to public statements by the new minister Karel Brezina (in charge of IS), an analysis of the whole legislative system of the Czech Republic is taking place, aimed at harmonizing it with the requirements of e-commerce. Two possible outcomes of this analysis are expected: either a new law on electronic commerce would be prepared, amending all relevant acts, or these relevant acts will be amended individually, without a specific law on e-commerce.
2.7 Education and research
The national IS strategy, the State information policy, deals with educational and IT-literacy issues, but these are more profoundly dealt with in a separate strategy document, prepared by the Ministry of education, youth and sports (MSMT, Ministerstvo skolstvi, mladeze a telovychovy). This separate strategy was approved by the Cabinet on May 10th, 2000, and is closely related both to the State information Policy and to the Action Plan for the implementation of the State Information Policy.
The education strategy document sets the following goals:
According to a SITES survey (Second Information Technology in Education Study), performed in 1999 by the Institute of information in education (Ustav pro informace ve vzdelavani), 24,4% of elementary schools and 65,2% of secondary schools were already connected to the Internet.
Funds for implementing the Concept were a hot topic during the preparations of the new state budget. The Action Plan requests approx. 3,5 billion CZK (cca 100 million ECU) for the next two years (2001 and 2002) to implement the Concept of SIP in Education. The state budget for 2001 assigns approx. 1,74 billion CZK (cca 49,8 million ECU) to the Ministry of education for implementing the Concept. .
2.8 Transport
The area of intelligent transport is known in the Czech Republic primarily under the concept of Transport Telematics (Intelligent Transport Systems-ITS). The Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications is currently preparing a National Concept of Development of Transport Telematics for the Czech Republic. This concept will be approved at the national level and will be the basic document for government and local authorities as well as for the private sector.
Development of Intelligent transport systems is also one of the projects included in the Action plan, with the objective to "Propose methodology for telematic transportation systems with particular focus on the distribution of their architecture and requirements for information and telecommunications technology in transportation". This project is assigned to the Ministry of Transport and telecommunications, and is due by year 2002.
2.9 Health care
Health care issues are dealt with in the Action plan, where one of the projects (named Health Sector On-line) is aimed at creating the conditions (data, legislation, standardization, organization) for the implementation of electronic medical records, management of national medical registers by field of specialty, and use of telemedicine in the health sector in the CR.
2.10 Labour
The national IS strategy and Action plan deals with labor issues only indirectly, through offering better services to the citizen, including information about labor issues, employment issues and possibilities of contacting the various administrations. Some specific projects in the Action plane (like: Public Administration contact places) are assigned to the Ministry of labour and social affairs (MPSV, Ministerstvo prace a socialnich veci).
2.11 Competition
The authority responsible for competition in general is the Office for the Protection of Economic Competition. The national IS strategy and Action plan deal with competition issues mainly indirectly, through fostering projects that help achieve and maintain a transparent and nondiscriminatory environment. The Action plan contains two specific projects aimed at building information systems for public tenders and auctions, and other projects aimed at making available the content of various registers ( real estate, economic entities etc.). The Central address project, aimed also at making auctions and tenders public, is already operational.
In telecommunications, the task of looking after free competition was assigned (by the new Act on Telecommunications) to the independent regulator, the Czech Telecommunications Office.
2.12 Access for all
As stated earlier, the national IS strategy and Action plan does not deal explicitly with issues related to providing cheaper and more available access to the Internet - it leaves this issues on the National Telecommunications Policy. It also does not deal explicitly with Internet access for research and development.
Access issues include connecting schools to the Internet and providing access to their students - these issues are dealt with (in the State Information Policy, and mainly in the Concept for SIP in Education, see above).
The national IS strategy, gives relatively high emphasis to providing citizens with access to information services through information booths and through other types of terminals located on publicly places. The recently started PPP (Private-Public Partnership) initiative emphasizes this type of access even more - according to available information several projects were focused on building such public terminals.
2.13 Copyright, intellectual property rights
Intellectual property rights were addressed by amendments to the trademark law, adopted by the Parliament in June 1995. The amendments brought Czech law into broad compliance with relevant EU directives and TRIPS. Following the 1995 amendment to the law on trademarks, on March 14, 1996, the Czech Parliament passed a long awaited amendment to the Copyright Law.
The national IS policy deals with IPR and copyright issues mainly through the Action plan, where one of the projects is aimed at creating a system for providing access to information on intellectual property (including Information on patents, trademarks, proof-of-origin labeling, topography of semi-conductor products, utility designs, design, and other items that are subject to intellectual property rights). This project is assigned to the Industrial Copyrights Office.
2.14 Public access to data
The national IS strategy pays much attention to providing the citizen with access to publicly available data. The Concept of Public Administration Information Systems intends to build a common secure and shared interface that will enable citizens to access all data deemed public through one unified interface. The Action plan contains several specific projects aimed at providing access to the content of various public registers, namely:
One Action project plan specifically deals with the Legal consolidation of basic registers (content-wise, organizationally and technologically).
2.15 Privacy, data protection, consumer protection
Privacy: The 1993 Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms provides for extensive privacy rights. The Penal Code covers the infringement of the right to privacy in the definitions of criminal acts of infringement of the home, slander and infringement of the confidentiality of mail. There are also sectoral acts concerning statistics, medical personal data, banking law, taxation, social security and police data. Unauthorized use of personal data systems is considered a crime.
Data protection: the area of data protection was covered by Act 256/1992 Sb. on Protection of Personal Data in Information Systems of April 29, 1992. As the name of this implies, this Act only dealt with data handled by information systems. In June 2000, a new Act on protection of personal data (Act no. 101/2000 Coll.) was enacted, covering all personal data (not only those handled by information systems). This new Act assigned competencies in personal data protection to an independent Office for the Protection of Personal Data (this office started working on July 1st, 2000). According to the new Act, subjects gathering personal data, which are not required to perform such activity by law, must apply to the Office for the registration of permitted processing. This will begin on December 1, 2000 and everyone who began to process personal data before this date is required to meet the notification requirement by May 31, 2001. Permission for new personal data processing must be obtained before it is initiated. The Office will issue registration forms, which will be available starting in October at designated locations and on the Internet.
Consumer protection: An act on Consumer protection was adopted in 1992 and amended in 1993 and 1995 (Act no. 634/1992 Coll., with amendments and modifications implemented the Act no. 217/1993 Coll., Act no. 40/1995 Coll. and Act no. 104/1995 Coll.). There is no governmental body in charge specifically of consumer protection, but competencies in this area are assigned to the Czech Trade Inspection (Ceska obchodni inspekce), working under the auspices of the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Other ministries and institutions also play an important if indirect role on consumer protection issues.
2.16 Security
Security is among the 8 main priorities of the national IS strategy (State information policy): VIII. The Information Society Stable and Safe. The Action plan has one specific project aimed at securing the Public Administration Information Systems (PAIS), named "PAIS Security:. The goal of this project is the "Application of PAIS security policy (communication system, basic registers, information booths, electronic indicators, security standard processing, access to public administration services, etc.).".
As for cryptography related policy, import of cryptography to the Czech Republic is allowed "if it is declared by the importer not to be used for production, development, collection or use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons." Export is regulated according to the (pre-December 1998) Wassenaar Arrangement, implemented in the Law on the control of export and import of goods and technologies subject to international controls (Act 21/1997 Coll.) and further regulations on licensing export and import (regulations 43/1997 and 44/1997).
2.17 Freedom of expression and information as far as the distribution via electronic networks is concerned
Freedom of expression and information is a human right and fundamental freedom, guaranteed by the Constitution of the Czech Republic. But the practical availability of information from state and local authorities was not sufficiently regulated, and the real practice was that citizens were given access to information only where there was an explicit statement (by a law, decree or another type of explicit legal statement).
In January 2000, a new Law on the Right to Information was enacted. It reverses the previous practice (that information is not public, unless otherwise stated ), states that all information possessed by state and local authorities is public, except where explicitly stated by other valid legislation (this holds for example for trade secrets, personal data etc.). The new Act also gives procedural guidelines for requesting and providing such information, and states that information can be made public (by its owner) and requested (by the citizen) and returned (by its owner) electronically, through means of remote access. Internet is explicitly mentioned as one of the possible forms of remote access (this is considered to be the first explicit mention of Internet in Czech legislation).
2.18 Others
Other developments include mainly the PPP (Public-Private Partnership) Initiative, launched by Minister Karel Brezina in August 2000. The basic idea of this initiative is to change the previous impression that "building the information society" is only a matter of the state, and does not concern the private sector. The PPP Initiative states that building the IS can only be done through joined forced of the state and the public sector. The first step taken under this initiative was a call to the private sector to present projects that could be implemented through cooperation of the state and private subjects. Further steps should follow.
3. Institutions and organisations in charge of IS regulation
The Czech Republic has no ministry specifically dedicated to IS. Instead, it has a minister charged, among other duties, with IS issues (currently Mr. Karel Brezina, elected "minister sans portfei" and Head of the Office of the CR Government on March 24th, 2000). Important IT-related decisions are made by the whole government (the Cabinet), while preparatory work is made mainly by the Governmental Council for State Information Policy and by the Office for the State Information System (later renamed to Office for Public Information Systems). Mr. Karel Brezina received the following competencies and duties:
3.1 Ministries
Instead of a dedicated "IS ministry", the Czech republic has a Governmental Council for State Information Policy. It is an advisory body to the Cabinet, and was established on October 19th, 1998 (by virtue of governmental resolution no. 680/1998). Its mission is 'to monitor, assess and coordinate work on the implementation of the state information policy. In this sense it may be regarded as a national advisory body for information society issues. The Council
Until March 2000 the Council was chaired by the vice-minister for economy and minister of finance Mr. Pavel Mertlik (who later handed his competencies and duties to Mr. Brezina). The first big duty of this Council was to prepare the National IS strategy (the Sate Information Policy, approved on May 31st, 1999).
On March 22nd, 2000, the Governmental Council for State Information Policy significantly increased it competencies in the area of IT procurement - according to governmental resolution no. 292/2000 it now oversees (together with the ministry of finance) the IT procurements of all state authorities.
In the area of Telecommunications, the new Act (Act no. 151/2000) divides competencies between the Ministry of Transport and Communications and the independent regulator (the Czech telecommunications Office). The ministry has (among others) the following competencies:
3.2 National regulatory authorities
The new Act on protection of personal data (No. 101/2000 Coll. ), enacted on June 1st, 2000, called for the establishment of an independent Office for Personal Data Protection (OPDP), as an independent authority charged with competencies in personal data protection. This office was established in June 2000 by a governmental decree (no. 642/2000) and started working on July 1st, 2000 with 18 employees.
The Office for Personal Data Protection is an independent agency, which
The Act on electronic signatures (No. 227/2000), enacted on October 1st, 2000, gives the Office for Personal Data Protection relevant competencies also in the area of electronic signatures.
In the area of telecommunications, according to the new Act the Czech Telecommunications Office transformed itself into an independent regulatory body. Previously it was a part of the Ministry of transport and telecommunications. Now, its president is appointed by the government. The Office has (among others) the following competencies:
3.3. Office for the protection of economic competition
The authority responsible for competition (Office for the Protection of Economic Competition) was established in 1991, according to the Act on the Protection of Economic Competition (Act 63/1991 Coll., with later amendments, based on EU competition law, covering both public and private sectors) - as the Federal Office for the Protection of Economic Competition. In 1992, due to the splitting of the then Czechoslovakia, it was changed into the Czech Office for the Protection of Economic Competition, which was later transformed into the Ministry for the Protection of Economic Competition. On November 1st, 1996, the Ministry was transformed into the current Office for the Protection of Economic Competition.
The protection of economic competition is currently stipulated by two basic laws:
Both laws are designed to ensure the observance of the compulsory rules of economic competition, and to prevent its abuse.
3.4 Consultative councils
The Governmental Council for State Information Policy, itself an advisory body to the Cabinet, has a consultative (advisory) body of its own. It is the Czech Forum on Information Society (CFIS), established on June 7th, 2000 (thus terminating the construction of the governmental advisory structure for state information policy). The Forum is modeled after the European IS Forum.
The mission of CFIS is to support the dialog on the development of the information society and the technical, technological, educational, social, cultural, religious, social, economic, ethical, security, environmental and defense aspects of its development, its risks and opportunities and on the role of the government and of the public in its advancement. The activity of CFIS will allow the public to take an active part in the implementation of the state information policy, in the resolution of problems related to the origin of an information society and at the same time to communicate with the government of the Czech Republic and its institutions and thus to influence the decisions adopted at all levels. Six CFIS working groups were constituted:
3.5 Bodies in charge of RTD policy
Similarly to the situation with IS, the Czech Government has an advisory body also for Research & Technological Development. It is the Research and Development Council of the Government of the Czech republic, constituted in accordance with Act No. 300/1992 Coll. concerning state support of research and development (as specified in Act No.1/1995 Coll. which, together with other regulations, lays down the principal tasks for the Council). The Council is charged with:
3.6 Organizations in charge of the promotion of the IS
The organization in charge of promoting the IS was the Office for the State Information System. It was established in 1996 , by Act no. 272/1996 coll., originally with the goal to implement a unified information system of all the state authorities. This goal was later changed, due to the fact that most state authorities already had an information system of their own, and starting to build one from scratch proved to be a wrong idea. The main goal of the State Information System Office was later changed to "coordinating" the interconnection of various independent information systems of state authorities. This later led to formulating the "Concept of Public Administration Information Systems building up") in 1999, and the Act on Public Administration Information Systems (Act No 365/2000 Coll.) that implemented this concept. Subsequently, the Office for the State information System (USIS, Urad pro Statni Informacni System) was renamed to "Office for Public Information Systems" (UVIS, Urad pro Verejne Informacni Systemy).
The Office also plays the role of an executive body in the area of IS, on behalf of the Governmental Council for State Information Policy. It provides necessary background (secretarial etc.) for the Council and for its advisory body (the Czech Information Forum), and is charged with task like coordinating various IT-related activities, preparing the technical part of new IT legislation, developing and issuing IT standards etc.
The authority of this body also includes raising the public awareness of, and introducing the information society, and for this reason it may be regarded, in this sense, as a national coordinating centre for increasing awareness and introducing the information society. After the dissolution of the National Information Center, the Office has taken over its mandate and became the national ISPO office.
4. International relationships and agreements
The Czech Republic was established on January 1, 1993, and signed the Europe Agreement in October 1993 (it entered into force on February 1, 1995). A previous agreement was signed for the then-Czechoslovakia, on December 16, 1991 (but due to the dissolution of the Czechoslovak Federation, it had to be re-negotiated). The Czech Republic applied for EU membership on January 17, 1996.
The Czech Republic is a member of OECD since December 21st, 1995.
The Czech Republic has signed and ratified the WTO agreement on Basic Telecommunications to implement liberal telecommunications principles and open all its telecommunications markets by January 1, 1998, except for the markets for voice telephony. These will be opened by January 1, 2001.
The Czech republic has signed the GATS agreement (General Agreement on Trade in Services), on March 15, 1997. Within the framework of this agreement (in sector 2 Communications) it undertook to allow foreign subjects an access to their markets with certain restrictions specified in the appendices to the fourth protocol (valid as of 1.1.1998).
On September 8th, 2000, the Czech Republic signed the Convention for the protection of individuals with regard to automatic processing of personal data (convention no. 108)
5. Market: Privatization, foreign investment, mergers, acquisitions, call for tenders,…
After the velvet revolution in 1989, the Czech Republic faced urgent needs to privatize large parts of its industrial, infrastructural and other assets. Information technology and IS were touched by privatization only indirectly, mainly through the privatization of telecommunications. Here, the government made a fundamental decision in 1994, when it decide to gradually open the market, but keep a monopoly on voice services and award exclusivity to then-SPT Telecom (now Czech Telecom). Following this decision, only a minority part of this operator was privatized into the hands of a strategic partner (the TelSource consortium, composed of KPN Telecom, Swisscom and AT&T). The consortium obtained 27 percent of shares originally, now it holds (through its members, namely KPN) a blocking minority of 33,4 percent. The majority of SPT Telecom's (Czech Telecom) stock remained in the hands of the state.
In 1999, the Czech government decided to privatize its majority in Czech Telecom (amounting to 51 percent of its shares, still held by the state through the National Property Fund). Only in May 2000 the main shareholder and strategic partner of Czech Telecom, TelSource, expressed its intention to participate in this privatization. But on August 30th, probably due to the result of the German UMTS tender, KPN announced that it is no more interested in investing into Czech Telecom and obtaining a majority in the incumbent. By the end of year 2000, the Czech government is still in the phase of searching for a buyer / it already announced that it wants to sell a majority stake in Czech Telecom, but 2 major options are still being considered: selling the 51 percent of shares held by the state, with no change to the shares held by the strategic partner, or to sell some shares currently owned by the state and some shares owned by the strategic partner, so that together the buyer gets a majority.
A similar situation is with Ceske Radiokomunikace, another major telecommunications company with a majority of shares (51% percent) held by the state. Ceske radiokomunikace are the public carrier for TV and radio broadcasting, but they also offer data transmission and networking services.
Acquisitions: as far as IT and telecommunications are concerned, the most interesting development occurred with various Czech ISP (Internet Service providers). Virtually all of the bigger ones were either wholly acquired by foreign companies, or were entered by a strategic partner who obtained a significant share in them (usually a majority). Only local and regional ISP seem to remain locally-owned.
Tenders: On June 26, 2000, the Czech Telecommunications Office opened a public tender for 3 country-wide licenses in the 26 GHz band for FWA (Fixed Wireless Access), point-to-multipoint. This tender had 3 winners (Broadnet Czech, Star One and Nextra Wireless), and they were awarded the licenses by the end of September. Still before the tender, various operators requested the use of the 28 GHz band for issuing other FWA licenses. At the end of December 2000, the Ministry of Transport and Communications announced that in 2001, the Czech Telecommunications Office will issue 3 licenses in the 28 GHz band in a beauty contest.
The new 28 GHz licenses will be issued only after another tender will be over - the tender for 4 UMTS licenses. The Ministry of Transport and communications originally wanted to sell # UMTS licenses to the current mobile operators, for an administratively settled price. Later, it became clear that by 2002, when the licenses would become usable, frequencies for 4 licenses will be available (instead of 3, as was previously expected). The ministry of finance later asked for an auction of these licenses, in order to maximize the financial outcome. When the new state budget for year 2001 was prepared and debated in Parliament, the sum of 20 billion CZK (cca 570 million ECU) was incorporated into the incomes of the state budget for year 2001, and it was decided that they should be sold in an open auction (i.e. an auction available to everybody, with no privileges for current mobile operators). But on December 18th, 2000, the government decided to award the 4 licenses in a tender, open to anybody. The Czech Telecommunications Office was asked to prepare the tender by January 2001, so that it could take place soon afterwards and the winners could receive the licenses by end of September 2001.
6. Standards
In the field of standardization, the Act No. 22/1997 Coll. on Technical requirements for products stipulates the method of development and issuance of Czech technical standards, including the method of defining the harmonized standards. European standards are being transposed continuously into the Czech technical standards (CSN), according to rules and dates applied within CEN, CENELEC and ETSI. European standards, published in the OJEC as harmonized ones, are also accepted as harmonized in the CR once introduced into CSN.
The Czech Standardization Institute (Cesky normalizacni institut, CSNI) is entrusted by the Ministry of Industry and Trade as the national standardization body. It is responsible i.a. for the development and publishing of standards and it represents the Czech Republic as a full member in CEN, CENELEC and as NSO in ETSI. The Czech Standards Institute is the independent national standardization body. It has a staff of about 200. Its main tasks are preparing and adopting standards; issuing and distributing them and co-operating with international non-governmental organizations and agencies for technical standardization.
The Czech Metrological Institute is a national metrological body, whose main purpose is to ensure national standards of the units and scales of physical and technical quantities, to develop, maintain, improve and internationally compare national (measurement) standards, to disseminate traceability to standards of lower orders and to exercise state metrological supervision of legal metrology instruments (regulated area).
The field of European standardization within the scope of CEN and world-wide standardization within the scope of ISO for the field of Telematics has been under the direction of the Ministry of Transport and Communications.
6.1 Standardisation bodies dealing with IS issues
The role of developing IT-related standards for the area of PAIS (Public Administration Information Systems) is assigned to the Office for the State Information System (now renamed to Office for Public Information Systems). Previously, the Office was preparing technical standards for a unified State Information System (SIS), and these standards were mandatory for the agencies of the state administration and local government (through a resolution of the Cabinet which declared the duty of the ministers to ensure the respect for standards within their area of competence). Currently, the compliance to standard is regulated by the newly enacted Act on Public Authorities Information Systems (Act no. 365/2000 Coll.).
All information systems that will be integrated in the PAIS need to be tested for conformity with SIS standards - the new Act on Public Administration Information Systems introduces compulsory attestation (confirming the declared quality of the products, services and their conformity with SIS standards and technical standards). In the Czech Republic only centers that are accredited by the Czech Institute for Accreditation are entitled to conduct attestation proceedings. Due to the limitation on the validity of the proposed system of attestations only on the public administration, the individual centers will be authorized by the Office for the State Information System, which will also direct the activity of these centers.
6.2 Relevant standards
Prior to its renaming and the shift from the homogeneous State Information System to the concept of interconnected information systems, the Office prepared the following main standards:
Now, the Office for Public Information Systems is working on other new standard, specifically aimed at the needs of the new Public Administration Information Systems.
Sources:
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