Talking 'bout a revolution

Skype has implemented a new fixed-fee system for land-line calls. For a monthly fee of around zł.13, a Skype user can call any land-line user in Poland.

Skype is also offering packages for international calls. One deal allows users to call land-lines in 20 countries in Europe for around zł.17 monthly, while a second costs approximately zł.40 and includes 34 countries around the world, including the US and China. The only restriction on the new pricing system is that users cannot exceed 10,000 minutes monthly.

"Skype's offer will definitely have an influence on the market, because it is a revolutionary offer," said Marcin Peterlik, an economist from the Gdańsk Institute for Market Economics. But Peterlik wasn't convinced that Skype would be a strong competitor for Telekomunikacja Polska (TP). "To some degree it may be competition, but the problem lies in Skype's narrow reach," he told WBJ.

According to Peterlik, despite the fact that internet usage in Poland is growing, it is still much lower than in Western Europe. "And even when Poles use the internet every day, they do not always use such sophisticated tools as paid online telephony," he added.

At the same time, however, Skype is quite popular among Poles. According to data revealed in 2006 by Skype (which guards its user figures closely), more than seven million users in Poland had downloaded the program. That made Poland number one in Europe in terms of downloads and number three globally, after the US and China.

While Skype's new offer is unlikely to usurp fixed-line telephone operators like TP in the near future, other internet telephony operators will feel the pressure immediately. "Skype will quickly become the leader in this field," said Peterlik.