Among the cities and towns in our voivodeship, our situation with telephone access is probably the worst! Here, one has to wait years for a telephone, and in some districts even a dozen or so years. These are the facts. People are furious.
Successive heads of the telecommunications ministry in the governments formed by the Solidarity movement repeatedly and publicly declared that they would radically change the situation within 1–2 years. Anyone who wanted one would get a telephone. These were empty promises.
In 1988 or 1989, apparently, some American telecommunications corporation offered the government of communist Poland to take over the entire national telephone system and solve the problem nationwide within two years. Several televised discussions were held on the subject, during which communist ministers explained that there was no need for this... because the telecommunications ministry itself would solve the problem within the next few years. Meanwhile, the head of the Bolesławiec telecommunications office, a former career military man, told me confidentially that American intelligence was behind it. We could not hand over the entire telephone system to capitalists and our enemies... By the way, perhaps there was something to it. Today, in a fully independent Poland, that corporation is not renewing its offer...
For the time being, the Bolesławiec Telecommunications Office on Chrobrego Street explains its helplessness and the actual state of affairs... by the theft of large quantities of underground and overhead cables by perpetrators who cannot be apprehended. If it were not for the thefts, perhaps more applicants would have in their homes the device invented by Bell.
The office also supports the existence of social (district) committees, which collect millions to cover the cost of obtaining such a long-dreamed-of telephone with an outside line.
K.S. (full name known to the editorial staff)