The Internet in Poland was used by 90.4 % of the country's households and 98.6 % in business entities in 2020 . [1]
The first analogue Internet connection was launched on September 26, 1990 and had a speed of 9600 bits per second. The Nuclear Physics Institute in Krakow on 19 November 1990 received the first IP address in Poland (192.86.14.0) assigned to it by United States Department of Defense. On November 20, 1990 CERN was sent the first e-mail to Poland and received it by this institute using the microVax II computer.[11]
According to an OECD report, in September 2012 the price of Internet access in Poland ranged from $0.45 to US$127.12 PPP per megabit per second of advertised speed. This places Poland in the middle of the pack on the low end (18th lowest out of 34 countries) and at the top on the high end (second highest behind New Zealand at $130.20). This compares with ranges of $0.40 to $23.25 for Germany, $0.40 to $12.35 for the Czech Republic, and $0.53 to $41.70 for the U.S.[12]
According to Eurostat, OECD and others, Internet access in Poland is among the most expensive in Europe. This is mostly caused by the lack of competitiveness and lack of know-how. New operators like Dialog and GTS Energis are making their own provider lines and offer more attractive and cheaper service. In February 2011, the Polish Office of Electronic Communication issued an order forcing the TPSA to rent 51% of their ADSL lines to other ISPs at 60% discount of their market pricing. As the result the prices are non-competitive, other ISP charge as TPSA making a guaranteed 40% profit, while TPSA has no incentive to lower its consumer prices, because it would result in lowering of wholesale prices as well.[citation needed]
The most popular ADSL services for home users in Poland are Neostrada provided by TPSA and Net24 provided by Netia. Both provide download speeds in the range of 10 to 80 Mbit/s and upload speeds of 1 Mbit/s or more. Business users as well as some home users use Internet DSL TP also offered by TPSA.[citation needed]
ADSL and VDSL service is offered by Neostrada.[citation needed]
There is another ADSL option available, targeted mainly at business clients, called Internet DSL TP. The link availability is guaranteed plus offers static IP addresses and a modem with Ethernet interface.[citation needed]
ADSL service called Net24, provided by TP's main competitor Netia. The service can be installed on ISDN lines.[citation needed]
Netia also offers ADSL (BiznesNet24) and SDSL (SuperNet24) subscriptions for business customers, which offer static IP address and higher speeds.
ADSL service called Multimo, provided by GTS Energis for TP customers via Bit Stream Access.[citation needed]
ADSL service called DialNET DSL, provided by Dialog now bought by Netia.[13][citation needed]
Cable providers such as Multimedia, UPC , Vectra and ASTER offer triple play services.[citation needed]
Vectra after the purchase Multimedia is the largest cable network in Poland. (reach 4.4 million household)[14] [15]
Cable providers from Greatpoland . Offers 10Gbit/s for anyone in their networks via fibre . [16]
UPC has upgraded its "Fiber Power" internet service to higher speeds, offering internet with download speeds from 10 Mbit/s up to 1 Gbit/s . (reach 1.5 million household)
ASTER used to provide triple play to many cities in Poland, especially Warsaw and Kraków with speeds ranging from 1 Mbit/s to 120 Mbit/s.[citation needed]
On January 2, 2012, Aster merged with UPC.[17] As a result, every service was bumped into the higher tier and the daytime half speed throttling has been removed.
HETAN provides stationary Internet via Satellite to whole Poland for private and business customers with speeds ranging from 10 Mbit/s to 20 Mbit/s in download and from 2 Mbit/s to 6 Mbit/s in upload. HETAN launched its services in August 2011, and is since then market leader in providing internet via KA-satellite services to private households and SME's in Poland. HETAN is largest Reseller of Tooway/Skylogic Services in Poland and does represent as well Hylass/Avanti.[citation needed]
KORBANK provides Triple Play, especially in FTTx or ETH technology. The firm allows subscribers to connect and use computer-based telecommunications networks using independent Internet connections boasting high quality and transmission capacity, digital telephony and new generation TV. Operations focus on Lower Silesia and Masovia regions, where telecommunications services are offered to both retail and business clients. KORBANK is also founder of the first in Europe IPTV Platform based on Unicast Protocol - AVIOS.[18]
The government does slightly restrict access to the Internet by using a black registry of internet sites, the PiS party deems un lawful[disputed ], but there are no credible reports that it monitors e-mail or Internet chat rooms without appropriate legal authority. The constitution guarantees freedom of expression and forbids censorship. Libel remains a criminal offense, but possible penalties were reduced in 2009.[19][20]
The law no longer prohibits most arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home, or correspondence, but there were little evidence of these occurring.[citation needed]; and the government does not always respect these prohibitions in practice[citation needed]. The law allows electronic surveillance for crime prevention[citation needed] and investigation[citation needed]. There is neither independent judicial review of surveillance activities[citation needed] nor any control over the use of information obtained by monitoring private communications[citation needed]. A number of government agencies[citation needed] have access to wiretap information,but neither of these practices extend to the internet as a medium, the use of trolling and haters employed by various political parties and institutions can also be considered as an example of internet censorship.
In early 2011, Internet censorship legislation that included the creation of a registry of blocked web sites was abandoned by the Polish Government, following protests and petitions opposing the proposal.[21][22][23]
In 2011 the Office for Electronic Communications reported that law enforcement agencies requested access to telecommunications data (including call logs, telephone location, and names registered to specific numbers) 1.8 million times, an increase of 500,000 over the number of requests in 2010.[20]
In January 2012, thousands protested Prime Minister Tusk's signing of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) establishing international standards for enforcing intellectual property rights, accusing it of facilitating Internet censorship.[19] And in February Tusk suspended ACTA's ratification because his government had made insufficient consultations before signing the agreement to ensure it was entirely safe for Polish citizens.[24]
In September 2012, the creator of the website Antykomor.pl that satirized President Komorowski was sentenced to 15 months of restricted liberty and 600 hours of community service for defaming the president.[19]