The last several years were revolutionary for Polish telecommunication infrastructure. Poland witnessed modernisation of telecom network – today all main telephone exchanges are digital, based on optic fibre network. About 77% of households have access to fixed telecommunication connections. This is comparable to other Central and Eastern European countries that are new members of the EU. Landline telecommunications are dominated by Telekomunikacja Polska S.A., whose share in the market lies between 77% (national calls) to 89% (local calls).

Simultaneously, the mobile telecommunication has developed dramatically. Between September 2004 and October 2005, the penetration factor of mobile technology increased by 15% - to 71%. In today’s Poland, more people use mobile phone than landlines – in December 2005 there were over 29 million active SIM cars. Mobile phone network market is dominated by three major providers, comparable in strength – market share of each of them at the end of 2005 amounted to 36%, 34% and 31%.

Moreover, the number of Internet users is growing (for more information, see: Internet accessibility), and, within this group, the percentage of people using broadband. In October 2005, 2% of Internet users were connected to broadband, and a year before that there were only 0.6% of broadband users. Still, it must be noted that this is one of the lowest indices in the EU.

Since the liberalisation of the telecom market, the number of service providers is growing. For example- there are 60 companies on the landline market (even though most of them are local in range), and the cable TV operators increased their share in the broadband Internet connection market.

Additional information: EC report European Electronic Communications Regulations and Markets 2005 (11th Report), 20.02.2006 – about Poland pages 227-235, at:
http://www.europa.eu.int/information_society/
policy/ecomm/doc/implementation_enforcement/annualreports/
11threport/sec_2006_193-vol1.pdf