One of the key traits of the socialist economy was its complete paresis of telecommunications infrastructure. On its own terms, this had a logic: an authoritarian leadership had no interest in making communication between citizens easier.
Over the past decade the number of fixed-line telephones has increased threefold more than in the preceding 45 years put together.
The rapid growth in access to fixed line telephones is also the result of market liberalisation. In 2000, the Ministry of the Treasury sold off some of its shares in Telekomunikacja Polska (TP S.A.), the dominant operator on the Polish market, to France Telecom. It also conducted tenders for regional and inter-city operating licenses. On the local market competing today are: Dialog, Netia, El Net and Niezależny Operator Międzystrefowy (NOM). The international calls market will also be liberalised. In the case of inter-city, international and mobile phone network connections, the very competitive VoIP services - which operate via the transfer of telephone signals to the Internet, sending data in packet form and reconnections with local fixed-line networks in given areas - are enjoying increasing popularity. One can also buy, at designated selling points, phone cards for VoIP operators containing access to the services of a given company, especially in the larger cities. One can connect with a given operator from any chosen place, maybe a phone booth on the street, paying for the service by buying a card. Especially active on this market are the Scandinavian company Tele2 and Polish firm NOM.
In turn, corporations active in Poland are now starting to radically change their thinking about telecommunications. Companies are starting to integrate telecommunications and IT applications into single systems, IP. This is a packet system of sending data, connecting the possibilities of transmitting audio and video. Adapting the IP platform means not having to double up on telecommunications and data transmission infrastructure. In the latest solutions for sending packets of data inside a company or outside, wireless local networks (WLAN), for example, radio networks, are being adapted. The research company Polish Market Review (PMR), which specialises in research into the level of IT engagement of the top 500 Polish companies, notes rising interest in the WLAN networks. PMR says that in 2003 about 90-100 companies from the 'List of 500' are already using WLAN, and such types of networks are most often found in companies from the telecommunications-IT sector, and also among the very largest companies.
Another mark of tele-IT modernity among the largest Polish companies is the presence of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. The CRM software sector for large companies is seen as one of the most promising sectors in the IT market. Of the top 500 companies questioned by PMR, already 25% have CRM data bases.
