Telecommunication Infrastructure

  General Information:

Poland not only has the largest Eastern and Central European population and land area outside of            Russia and the Ukraine, it also has the greatest number of main lines - 5 million - among these countries... Even so, Poland still has one of the lowest penetration rates - 13 telephone mainline per 100 population in the region.  While the telephone subscriber waiting list of over 2 million remains high, millions of new lines have been installed in the past 5 years.   The quality of service is low, but is improving.  The average call competion rate nation wide is 40 per cent, but in Warsaw significantly worse with only 25 per cent. 3   The reasons for the underdevelopment of Polish telecommunications are not only due to the mistaken premisis of a communist economy, but also the COCOM embargo, which deprived the country of the achievements of modern technology.  At the time, the embargo lists included most of modern telecommunications equipment.  Thus the development of telecom networks only got started once restrictions on the export of some equipment and documentation to Poland had gradually been lifted. 4

  Telecom Statistics:

Background statistics on Polish telecommunications 1991-1994

                                                                                                                  Source:  5

        Number of exchanges                                        Number of lines ('000)

                                                                                                                                            Source:  5

Forecast for Polish telecommunications

                                                                                                                                            Source:  5

Fiber-optic trunks/Submarine cables

In the early 90's Polish and Danish companies launched the construction of a "North-South" fiber optic trunk line, which runs from the island of Bornholm   to Warsaw, and therefrom the south of Poland.  Another major construction is an "East-West" fiber trunk line which provides connections to Western Europe These are both part of the general project of the establishment of a top-level national long distance network, comprisign 12 transit exchanges. The long distance network was completed in 1996.  It comprises a total of 49 exchanges with some 250,000 digital fiber-optic and radio links.During the last three years, several dozen local exchanges and local fiber-optic lines have been opened.  It is difficult to specifyall telecom projects in view of their number.  Prime examples are operations of thorough modernization of the infrastructure of whole regions, e.g. in Szczcin and Gdansk (AT&T cooperation) and in the area of Bielsko-Biala (Siemens).  The effect of projects such as this have resulted in the fact that in some regions of Poland it has become very easy for private persons to secure a connection tot he telephone system.  Unfortunately, so far this does not apply to Warsaw, many other large cities and rural area, and therefore the overall image is not so great. 6

ISDN

An overlay network called Komertel, based on AT&T PRX/Z exchange with a capacity of more than 5000 users and over 70 direct international incoming and outgoing circuits was installed in the early 90's.  It's tariff involves higher subscription charges and it is targeted manly at the business community, especially international firms, hotels and embassies.   Businesses commonly list their Komertel no. on business cards so that easier access from outside of Poland can be achieved.  Subscribers to the network are located maily in Warsaw.  Since 1994, an ISDN pilot service is being offered through the Komertel switch in a downtown Warsaw business district.  ISDN will eventually be available to 500 subscribers.7

  Mobile:

Private mobile radio

The development of mobile radio for civilians started in Poland about 30 years ago, mostly for various emergency and government services. There are now about 150,000 terminals (including 40,000 base fixed radio stations) forming 4,300 mobileradio networks. These networks oeprate mainly om 30mhz and 150 MHz frequency bands and they operate under licenses, which were established formerly by the minister of P&T and are now run by the State Radiocommunications Agency.

Trunked mobile radio

This is a relatively new service in Poland. The first network of this type in Eastern Europe, called Radio-Net, was brough into operation in April 1992, by TPSA and a joint venture called Uni-Net. The network covers about 20 cities in the country. It operates in the 450-470 Mhz frequency band and provides services in about a radius of 30 Km from each base station. A company called Metro-Bip has launched a similar network in Warsaw, Gdansk and Poznan.

 Paging networks

A VHF FM based network sound brodacasting transmitter network was put into operation in the early nineties by a company called Polpager (Joint venture with TPSA). It covers all of Poland offering numeric and alphanumeric services. Aprroximaltely 20,000 customers use this paging network.

Other radiocommunications systems

A form of radiotelephony has been rapidly developing in Poland in the citizen band (CB) of 27 Mhz. An estimate of 200,000 licenses for the use of this kind of equipmant have been issued. However numerous users break the rules of this type of communication, grossly exceeding the allowed transmitter power thereby disturbing the operation of other radiocommunications devices as well as radio and tv reception.8

   Cellular Systems:

The development of a modern mobile radio network started with the award of a cellular network ternd in 1991. The cellular network was constructed by a consortium called the Polska Telefonia Komorkowa SP, a joint venture between TPSA, Ameritech, and France Telecom. TPSA controls the venture with a stake of 51%. The network is called Centertel and is an adaption of a Scandinavian NMA system (Nordic Mobile Telephone System). Polish and Scandinavian subscribers can use their mobile phones throughout the five countries, with automatic access to the network, connection making and charge counting. The target plan provided for four mobile telephone exchanges in Warsaw, Katowice, Poznan and Gdansk. Centertel covers more than 50% of the country including main roads between major cities. The current number of subscribers is estimated at about 120,000 with approximately 300 base stations.9 

The latest information I found stated that the mobile sector has doubled since last 1996, and that the sector is experiencing higher growth when compared to the rest of the telecommunications sector. Currently, Poland counts three cellular networks operated by companies with foreign participation: one analog NMT 450 system and two GSM networks. Centertel, the company operating the analog network has recently won a license for DCS 1800 system in the ten largest cities. This fourth cellular networks became available in Warsaw by end of 1997. 10

   Satellites/Earth Stations/Teleports:

Poland has at its disposal some state-of-the-art satellite communications systems based on an earth-station teleport in Psary near Kielce in the central part of the country.  In the Intelsat system, telephone connections and t.v. transmissions are realized via satellites belonging to the organization, located over the Atlantic Ocean and over the indian Ocean.  In the Inmarsat system, telephone and telex connections with ships at sea are realized via satellites belonging to or hired by Intelsat.  To improve international communications with Europe, Poland became a full member of the European satellite communications organization Eutelssat in 1991. They then in 1993 created a real teleport with 1,400 international links in Psary.

   Private Network Diffusion:

In Poland scientific networking begun in the late seventies. From 1990 there is a very rapid development of the Scientific and Academic Computer Network (NASK) in Poland. The Government State Committee for Scientific Research is responsible for the development and the budget of the network. The communication infrastructure is financed by the Government, State Committee for Scientific Research (KBN). Most physical lines are maintained by the Polish Telecommunication; some are supported by the Banking Telecommunications Enterprise (TELBANK S.A.). NASK uses 4 different protocol stacks of the
following networks: POLPAK, PLEARN, Internet, and DECNet.

POLPAK, which is a packet switched network based on the CCITT X.25 protocol, is the oldest one. This is now and will be in the future a tool for communication with other networks and for providing access to computers in Poland and abroad. POLPAK connects 18 major cities of Poland and allows the access of smaller users to the NASK network.

PLEARN (EARN/BITNET) network consist of IBM mainframes (about 20 at the moment) and serves for mail exchange and transfer of files of limited size. More than 10,000 users work in EARN (less than 10 % of the total NASK traffic). Traffic in this network is decreasing significantly at the moment.
Internet has developed in a very dynamic way for the last 3 years. Traffic in Internet makes about 80-90 % of the total NASK traffic. DECNet network based on the VAX computers is used in southern and western Poland.

All the above networks are connected and users of each one can easily use services of the others.

The NASK communcation infrastructure consists of leased telephone lines (regional, interregional, international), line equipment(modems, converters, multiplexers), packet switching nodes, terminal concentrators, routers, bridges and gateways and line control equipment. The basic information services typically used are e-mail (EARN/BITNET, MVS on VAX,UNIX systems and MEMO), file transfer and telnet. Four protocols are running in the NASK network: X.25, IP, DECnet and BSC/SNA.

The main node of NASK is located at Warsaw University. International connections consist of 2 Mbps satellite link toStockholm, a link to Copenhagen and a 64 kbps (it will be soon upgraded to 128 kbps ) leased line to Vienna. Connections via Aarhus, Amsterdam and Bern (EMPB) to Internet and to main nodes of other Eastern Europe networks (e. g. Prague, Budapest, Sofia and Bucarest) are also available. NASK is involved in the Pilot IXI East Central-Europe project by installation an IXI node in Poland. Within Poland there are two 2 Mbps network connections: Warsaw-Gdansk and Warsaw-Katowice. The most important cities are included into NASK. Usually bandwidth of 64 kbps is used for those connections (but to some cities 9.6 kbps). All Internet basic services are available for Polish S+T users.

For the NASK backbone 2 Mbps links (based on the Frame Relay technique) should be implemented for most important internal lines in Poland. In the big centres local lines should reach 100 Mbps (based on the Cell Relay technique) bandwidth. Project of building MAN's in cities being biggest scientific centres (Warsaw, Poznan, Krakow etc.) is in progress. In those centres supercomputers are already implemented and accessable through the network.

From the viewpoint of exchange of information inside and outside of Poland based on telework it is very essential to implement and to run reliable, working on-line databases containing essential data on Polish scientific society, its achievements and potentials, accessible for national and international users (they should be accessible through network and there must be at least an English version of each of them).

For other RTD (not purely scientific) users networking facilities should be improved (or even established). Also information handling possibilities must be developed.

For the implementation of on-line access to scientific libraries information, CD-ROM servers are necessary. Much wider Internet access for secondary schools is needed.

The Polish Government spends every year about 1,000,000 US dollars for developing and improving scientific networking in Poland. For scientific users traffic is free (State Committee for Scientific Research is paying for it, only 7 % of the VAT is to bepaid by RTD users since 1994). Always the most economical way for organising Internet traffic is searched for. For example copies of the most important databases (like science citation index) are desired to be kept in Poland for reducing traffic costs,also for the Internet connections most economical way for all CEE countries is under discussion (e.g. CEENet initiative).  11

There are also 3 private wide-area data networks:

KOLPAK:
Railway Computer Network,
TELEBANK:
Banking Network,
CUPAK:
Governmental Computer Network

Network Infrastructure

   Domestic Telecom Players:

 Telekomunikacja Polska S.A. TPSA

Telekomunikacja Polska S.A. (TPSA) is the national telecommunication operator in Poland. TPSA is a joint stock company fully owned by the state Treasury. TPSA is, by law, thesole provider of international public telephone services. It is also the only company providing long distance public telephoneservices. Local telephone services are demonopolized, but TPSA dominates the market. TPSA currently handles 95% of alltelecommunication traffic in Poland. It is also one of the largest and most profitable companies in Poland. TPSA employs more than 73,000 people. In 1995, TPSA had revenues from telecommunications services of $2,065 million and a net profit of $351 million. Telekomunikacja Polska S.A. is the successor of Polska Poczta,Telegraf I Telefon (PPTT - Polish Post, Telegraph and Telephone),a state telecommunications entity. Postal and Telecommunications activities were separated as a result of the provisions of the 1990 Law on Post and Telecommunications. Telekomunikacja Polska S.A. (TPSA) and Polish Post S.A. started operations on January 1, 1992, both as independent joint stock companies wholly owned by the State Treasury. Since TPSA provides services as its statutory obligation, it does not need to have a license (licenses) to operate. TPSA is also an owner of more that 200 radio and television broadcasting and retransmission stations located throughout Poland.

 TPSA is a member of the following international telecommunications organizations:

International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

European Telecommunication Network Operators Association (ETNO)

Foundation "Stichting" European Telecommunications Information Services.

 STRUCTURE:

TPSA is governed by the General Assembly where it is represented by the Minister of Post and Telecommunications. The General Assembly appoints the President of the Executive Board, and following his suggestions, the remaining members of the Executive Board and the controlling bodies: the Supervisory Board and the Audit Committee. The TPSA Executive Board has direct responsibility for the Company Headquarters, seven national units and ten regional headquarters. Altogether there are 106 divisions in the structure. The President of the Executive Board, Mr. Jacek Gadomski,directly oversees economic, financial and legal issues. Mr. Lucjan Geborys is the Deputy President of the Executive Board responsible for business development, investment and foreigncooperation. Mr. Stanislaw Popiolek, the Deputy President of the Executive Board is responsible for rural telephony. Three other Members of the Executive Board have the following responsibilities: Mr. Andrzej Gorny - network management, radio communications and human resources; Mr. Witold Harasim telecommunications systems and new technologies; and Mr. Emil Plodzien - telecommunications services, marketing, organization and management.

 Separate units reporting directly to the Executive Board are:

- Centre for Radio communications and Telecommunications in Warsaw (Manages telex services, Radio communication Services, and Komertel, including ISDN services (Integrated Services Digital Network);

 - Teleinformatic Systems Center in Warsaw (Manages data transmission systems POLPAK, metropolitan area networks (MANs), electronic mail, Internet, evaluates IT equipment to be purchased by TPSA);

 - Optotelecommunications Technology Center in Lublin (manufacturer of fiber optic cable, tests equipment);

 - Trade Center in Warsaw (Purchases equipment for TPSA use at the request of other offices);

 - PSARY Satellite Services Center (Centrum Uslug Satelitarnych w Psarach) (provides telecommunication services, registers satellite terminals and issues opinions on satellite equipment homologation); 

-Training Center; and Research and Development Center in Warsaw. Furthermore, TPSA has 10 Regional  Headquarters which are responsible for their respective regions.

 SERVICES:

Telephone, telegraph, telex and telefax universal services areconducted through TPSA public network. TPSA operates the following satellite communication systems: Intersputnik (for the needs of international telephone communication and occasional television transmissions), Inmarsat (2 satellite stations to provide telecommunication traffic with ships at sea in the Pacific region and the Indian Ocean region), Intelsat (2satellite stations for the international telephone traffic needs and television far reaching transmissions), and Eutelsat (telephone traffic, televisions transmission reception to and from European countries). TPSA leases lines for telephony, radio and TV broadcasting and satellite communications.  12

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