Communications in Poland
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Warning: Some data are out-of-date. Most analog telephone exchanges have been replaced with digital technology.
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Telephones - main lines in use:
12.3 million (2003)
Telephones - mobile cellular:
23.1 million (2004)
Telephone system:
From the communist era Poland inherited an underdeveloped and outmoded system of telephones, with some areas (e.g. in the extreme South East) being served by manual exchanges. As of 2004 this was still in the process of being overhauled although almost all major population centres are now served by modern fully computerised exchanges. The former state owned telephone monopoly (TPSA) has been mostly privatised, with France Telecom buying the largest share. Various other companies have entered the fixed phone market, but generally aiming for niches (e.g. Sferia with fixed wireless, Netia covering primarily business and Elnet providing services over cable). Whilst prices have reduced and availability has increased considerably since the introduction of competition, there is little sign of TPSA's market share being seriously reduced.
The long waiting list for fixed line telephones helped in a boom in mobile cellular telephone use and the majority of phones in Poland are now GSM based. There are three competing networs with similar market share, Plus GSM, Idea and Era. To this, in 2004, has been added one virtual operator Heyah, which, at present, is actually fully owned by the operator of Era. Apart from this, Centertel network (actually the operator which runs Idea) still runs an NMT 450 network with some thousands of subscribers[1] (http://www.idea.pl/portal/map/map/about_us_about_firm?TARGET=ABOUT_US_INFORMATION).
3G licenses have been granted to each of the incumbent mobile operators, but (As of 2004, May) launch has not yet taken place. A fourth license sale was attempted, but this failed due to lack of outside interest given the price the government wanted to achieve.
Domestic
cable, open wire, and microwave radio relay; 4 cellular networks; local exchanges 56.6% digital
International
satellite earth stations - 2 Intelsat, NA Eutelsat, 2 Inmarsat (Atlantic and Indian Ocean regions), and 1 Intersputnik (Atlantic Ocean region)
- Radio broadcast stations
- AM 14, FM 777, shortwave 1 (1998)
- Radios
- 20.2 million (1997)
- Television broadcast stations
- 179 + 256 repeaters (1995)
- Televisions
- 13.05 million (1997)
- Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
- 19 (1999)
- Internet Users
- 12 million (2003)
- Country code (Top level domain)
- PL
External links
- Idea, the GSM operator and also the NMT 450 network (http://www.idea.pl/)
- Era, a GSM operator (http://www.era.pl/)
- Plus GSM, a GSM operator (http://www.plusgsm.pl/)
- Heyah, Poland's first virtual operator (http://www.heyah.pl/)
- Sami Swoi, another virtual operator (http://www.samiswoi.pl/)