Internet Service Users in Poland

In the group of individual Internet users, dial-up links continue to be popular (42%), while a majority of the rest use some form of permanent link. Seven in ten of those who don't have a permanent link are not interested in installing one. Three quarters of individual users do not know how fast their home Internet link is. When asked why they don't use the Internet to a greater extent, individual users primarily cited high costs, lack of time, fear of viruses and vulgar content, excessively slow connections, the inability to find interesting information and lack of interesting content in Polish.

In Poland, the Internet is still elite.
The Internet remains something elite in Poland, as it expands slowly but systematically.
Data collected by Ipsos in June this year indicate that compared to the analogous period last year, the percentage of Poles who use the Internet at least from time to time rose 9 points and now stands at 33%. The percentage of those who use the Internet at work has remained almost unchanged (8% in June). However, the number of individual users has been growing slowly and systematically. According to the June study, 17% of Poles use the Internet at home, which represents a 7% rise in relation to the analogous period last year. But using the Internet remains an elite activity in Poland: Internet users in this country are more often well-educated, high-earning young people who live in cities.

Dial-up links remain popular
A third of Poles have a PC in their household. Half of household PCs are connected to the Internet. Of these users, 42% use a modem (dial-up) to link with the web, 36% use a permanent link based on the phone network (their own or shared), 11% link to the Internet through a local network and 6% do so through television cables. None of the respondents had two different types of links to the Internet.

How do you hook up with the Internet from your home?

Access speed not understood
Two thirds of individual Internet users do not know how fast their home links are. This suggests that the information about access speed included in Internet providers' advertising materials is not understood by a majority of customers, thus cannot be taken into account by them when they make decisions about whether to install the given link. Internet providers, instead of informing potential customers about data transmission speeds, should present them the benefits stemming from fast links.

Typical home uses
Individual Internet users primarily visit websites and use electronic mail.

Home Internet users use:

Expenditures on the Internet
The current average level of expenditures on the Internet is 56 zł a month. Half of those who use the Internet spend under 50 zł a month on this service. The portion of Internet users who spend more than 100 zł a month on the web constitutes only 8% of all users. Over 10% of the respondents spend less than 25 zł a month on the Internet.

Low interest in permanent links
Interest in installing permanent Internet links at home remains fairly limited in Poland. Among those who do not have a permanent Internet link at home, 70% have no interest in installing one at all.
Ipsos also asked those interested in a permanent link about what they considered to be the optimal price of such a link. The most frequent answer: 50 zł. Potential customers considered 40 zł a month to be a bargain. At the price of 60 zł a month, potential users would view this service as a luxury that they may nonetheless be able to afford.

Barriers to broader use of the web by individual users
Individual Internet users were asked why they don't use the web to a greater extent. The leading barrier proved to be the excessively high costs of connections (68%). The next greatest barriers were lack of time to use these services (67%), fear of viruses, Trojan horses and automatic dialers (60%) and the fact that the Internet contains too much vulgar, offensive and pornographic content (51%). Half of users mentioned excessively slow links with the Internet. A problem some users face is the inability to find information that interests them, lack of interesting content in Polish and difficulty using the Internet and computers.