Computing & Internet Diffusion

The Polish Market Review (1) created and received the results of a survey outlining E-Commerce in Poland. Of the entities surveyed the results indicate that certain facts such as:

Demographics

A Global eCommerce Report provided by TNS (2) Interactive states:

Population
· 18% of the population are Internet users
· 19% of the population are male users of the Internet
· 16% of the population are female users of the Internet
· 01% of the total population shop online

Age
· 54% of Internet users are under 20 years old
· 37% of Internet users are between the ages of 20 and 29 years old
· 12% of Internet users are between the ages of 30 and 39 years old
· 10% of Internet users are between the ages of 40 and 59 years old
· 09% of Internet users are between the ages over 60 years old

Place
· 36% of respondents use Internet at home
· 20% of respondents use Internet at work
· 24% of respondents use Internet at school or university
· 16% of respondents use Internet Elsewhere
· 01% of respondent use Internet from a mobile PC or device

E-commerce

· 80% of firms have Internet access
· 50% of firms have some type of Internet access on at least 50% of comp.
· 63% of computers in the firms have access
· A clear interdependency between Internet access and company size/revenues: the larger the revenues and company size the more Internet access
· Only 7.7% of respondents make purchases online
· The vast majority of smaller/medium firms/individuals do not buy items online
· 15.3% of Internet users announced their intention to purchase items online

Telecommunications

"Forecast articles contain the Economist Intelligence Unit's five-year demand-side forecasts for an industry in a particular country. They are updated at least twice a year and are complementary to our structure pieces, which provide background information on the industry in question."

Source: Pyramid Research; Economist Intelligence Unit (3)

Internet

Growth - Usage of the Internet in Poland has grown over the past 4 years from 5.4% to 23.5% by mid 2002.

The following graph exhibits how long individuals have been using the Internet. This displays that individuals have only just started using the Internet, at least within the past 2 years.

Internet Service Providers Operating Their Own Backbone: (4)

I. Telekomunikacja Polska SA
National PTT operator, runs X.25 and Frame Relay over
a fiber backbone at 34 and 155 Mbps. Offers VPN and VSAT
services as well. Present all over the country.
Foreign connections: altogether 135Mb US.
Commercial provider.

II. NASK
Academic network operator, runs fiber backbone
at 34 Mbps. Present in 49 cities.
Offers X.25, Frame Relay, VPN etc. apart from IP traffic.
Foreign connections: 155M terrestial link to Sweden
and 10M satellite connection to US.
Acedemic provider, but active in commercial market as well.
(Also considered a non-commercial provider ISP)

III. TelEnergo
A network built around power network grid. Fiber backbone,
operated at speeds 8M, 34M, 155M and 622M. Connects all
major cities.
Sells bandwidth in the commercial market, not exactly an ISP.

IV. Kolpak
Polish Rail Network - connects all rail stations, thus
present all other the country.
Fiber connections on major directions at speed up to 155M,
as well as copper lines.
Rents links in the commercial market, not exactly an ISP.

V. Telbank
Fiber backbone between major cities at 34 Mbps,
other connections 1-8 Mbps to smaller cities.
Foreign connection: 1M satellite connection to MCI.
Offers also X.25.
Commercial ISP, mostly serves the banking sector.

VI. POL34
Academic network, buys bandwith (155M, TESTET 622Mb links) from TelEnergo.
Connects 14 major university centres.
Foreign connection: 34MB to Frankfurt TEN155
.4Mb to Sweden (3+1) via satellite
Academic ISP.
(Also considered a non-commercial provider ISP)

Costs for Connectivity(5)

Monthly* Internet Access Price in Poland, 2001:

Cable modem, Chello PLN 199/USD 50
Dial-up, Netia*** PLN 69/ USD 17
Dial-up, TPSA** PLN 210/USD 52
Leased line, 512 Kb/s, three different ISPs PLN 880/USD 220
WAP, Idea PLN 810/USD 202

Note: *30 hours of usage per month; **For connections between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m.; ***Fixed fee for 100 hours of internet connection per month.; Installation costs not included

Internet Users (5)

According to Public Opinion Research Center (OBOP) about 4 million people enter the Internet each month. There are 140,000 Internet domains and 90,000 e-mail accounts established. The total number of Internet users in 2001 was estimated to be 2.5 million.

Cybercafes

It is estimated that there are more than 70 cyber cafes throughout Poland. These cafes offer anywhere from 10 - 35 (or more) computers, with connections anywhere where 28.8kbps dial up connections to 2Mbps broadband connections. The average café also has the following features and capabilities:
· Ordered downloading
· Scanning
· Printing
· Games
· Multi-lingual capabilities
· CD-R & WR
· Email accounts
· Multiple Operating Systems (Windows 98, 00, XP)
· Internet Brower (IE 5.0 and above)
· Computer classes are also offered.

Many cafes request purchasing computer time in terms of hours, at a range of 3 to 6 zl/hour, although entire days may be purchased at 12 to 15zl. (At the time of this analysis, 12/09/02, 1 US dollar = 3.934 ZL)

Internal TCP/IP Networks (6)

Although Novell LANs are the most popular in Poland, in the last few months a substantial growth of TCP/IP LANs, both in number and size, can be observed. This is correlated with a shift towards multiuser systems, either 386 UNIX or UNIX workstations, and VAXes with VMS. All this constitutes a good environment for building Internet, by connecting existing (or emerging) LANs. Since Novell NetWare offers also TCP/IP, it should be even possible to connect such networks too.

Since mid-May there is a connection between Warsaw and Krakow, between LANs of the Institute of Physics, Warsaw University; Warsaw Academic Computer Center; Krakow Academic Computer Center and Institute of Physics, Jagellonian University Krakow. Four Ethernet TCP/IP LANs, containing together about 40 computers, among them 6 UNIX machines, are connected. For the Krakow-Warsaw connection one channel on the multiplexed EARN line is used. At the moment IBM PC/AT computers running KA9Q public domain package are used as routers. KA9Q package implements TCP/IP services in MS-DOS environment; packet routing, telnet, ftp, SMTP are supported. On serial lines asynchronous SLIP protocol is employed. It works, although the effectiveness is not the best. It should be stressed, however, that these connections are established at a minimal cost.

SOURCES

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