Since the political changes in 1989, the general telecom policy has focused on the liberalization of the telecommunications market and the extension and integration of existing regulations. The governmental change in 1997 has led to further liberalization of the telecommunications market, which resulted in the privatization of Telekomunikacja Polska S.A. (TPSA) and the restructuring of the Polish Post.

The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications issued licenses for telecommunications networks and services except for services provided by TPSA.

The mobile sector is competitive, with 1 NMT 450 license, 3 GSM licenses and 3 DCS-1800 license granted.
Licenses for 3 long-distance operators were signed by Mr. Tomasz Szyszko, the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications on 17 of May 2000. 3 long-distance operators, Netia 1, NG Koleje Telekomunikacja (KT) and Niezalezny Operator Miedzystrefowy NOM, started offering services in 2001. There were disputes of interconnection financial agreements and technical issues of connection points with the incumbent operator TPSA in 2000.
On September 1, 2000 Minister Tomasz Szyszko presented a draft call for tender for the Universal Mobile Telecommunication System UMTS, the third generation mobile telecom services. The aim of this call is to stimulate the country's telecommunications infrastructure development and to ensure that Polish UMTS networks will become an integral part of the quickly consolidating mobile market. Only tenders of three Polish cellular operators have been submitted, so Min. Szyszko decided to cancel the tender and extended existing licenses for mobile cellular telecommunication services.
From 2001, under the new Telecommunications Law, licenses are replaced by authorizations. The Office of Telecommunications Regulation (OTR) is established. The President of the OTR is the competent regulatory authority for telecommunications activities including authorizations, frequency management and monitoring of compliance with the requirements of electromagnetic compatibility. According to privatization agreement with France Telecom, a strategic partner of TP S.A., the dominant operator, the new authorizations for public voice telecommunication services will be issued starting from year 2002. (6)

Cable television infrastructure may be used to provide local voice telephony, data communications, and paging, subject to an individual license. Cable TV companies are allowed to compete with telecommunications operators for the provision of telecommunications services. The cable TV and data communications markets are open. Value-added services companies have a foreign participation limitation of 40%. PTK Polska Telewizja Kablowa Sp. z o.o. (The Polish Cable Television) has received the license for provision of telecommunications services and authorization for the deployment and use of telecommunications networks. This license is for broadband data transmission services through nationwide cable TV networks. The service started in December 2000 in Warsaw and Krakow. Since 2001, the service has been extended to the other large cities. Additionally Internet services will be provided by satellite Wizja TV. It is aimed to provide access to converged services: TV, Internet and telephone through one TV cable.

PTK is the biggest cable TV operator in Poland. @Entertaiment founded it in 1989. United Pan-Europe Communications (UPC) owns @Entertainment. PTK has changed its name to UPC Telewizja Kablowa soon. The level of investment is estimated at 6 million Euro at start and up to 10 million during the next 3-4 years.

EL is the group of telecommunications companies of Elektrim S. A. Group EL provides integrated telecommunication services based on cable TV Aster City Net in Warsaw. Since September 2000 integrated services of fixed telephony, cable TV and broadband Internet have been implemented in Warsaw. The network of aster City Cable is five hundred-sixty thousand homes. EL has invested between 100-130 million Euros to develop telecommunication optical backbone network infrastructure. In 2000 a full modernization and expansion was started. 600,000 home users in Warsaw will access integrated service up to the year 2003. These services will be extended to other Polish cities as well. The fees for integrated services are lower than the fees for standard single services. Internet access is without time limit. Cable TV offer will be expanded to digital TV, video on demand, pay-per-view etc.

The local voice telephony is provided on duopoly basis, i.e., TPSA and only one other operator for local telephony in each local area. There is no foreign investment limitation for local voice telephony. About 70 licenses for local voice telephony have been issued. On 7 June 1999, a local telephony license for the Warsaw area was granted to El-Net, an operator that plans to connect 340,000 subscribers during the next five years. After that grant, the duopoly in the local voice licenses in each region was reached. The Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is now offered by several providers. The first operator, which started VoIP in Poland for international connections in December 1999, was Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa (ERA GSM). Several providers offer VoIP services already. Scandinavian operatorTELE2 offers domestic and international VoIP services. It offers GAGATEK pre-paid service by fixed telephony network as well.
In December 2000 Polish Phonesat of Elektrim Group signed the agreement with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Poland for VSAT services for the Polish embassies including satellite telephony services. Polish Phonesat cooperates with EuropeStar and Telenor UK to provide this interconnection.

Since 1991 the telecommunications network has registered a steady growth rate of approximately 14%. However, it has slowed-down since 2000. In 2001 the fixed line telephone operators increased the number of main lines by 3.7%, bringing the total number to 11.4 million at the end of the year. Approximately 8.5 million of these are in urban areas (1.8% increase) and only some 2.9 million in rural areas (9.9% increase). At the end of 2001 average telephone density, measured by the number of main lines per 100 inhabitants, was 29.4.