The Polish VoIP telephony market accounted for approximately 5 percent of the fixed-line market in 2008 in terms of revenue, reaching PLN 440 million, according to consulting company PMR. Of the total revenues, cable operators generated the largest share in the segment. While residential clients use IP telephony as a tool for making free calls, the majority of companies are reluctant to adopt VoIP services and typically use it merely as an additional tool.  The residential customers segment is dominated by cable operators, which provide internet telephony as part of triple-play packs. At the end of 2008, cable operators had approximately 450,000 VoIP subscribers. In terms of VoIP tariffs, cable operators are positioned between providers specialised in IP telephony and traditional fixed-line telecoms. The researchers suggest that this helps them to attract customers and enables the cable operators to generate relatively higher margins.

In recent years, local internet providers have started to include VoIP services in their offers. Local ISP representatives believe the service does not generate high revenue, but it helps to retain customers. The majority of local ISPs take advantage of the platforms supplied by bigger providers, while others implement their own IP telephony systems. The market share of specialised VoIP operators (eg EasyCall, FreecoNet, HaloNet) remains rather insignificant as far as revenue is concerned, according to the report. Meanwhile operators have switched their focus from residential to business customers, expecting higher revenue resulting from greater traffic and value-added services. Internet telephony services are increasingly present in telecom operators providing fixed-line services. In their case, VoIP complements their offer and facilitates the retention of customers.

In the next four years, the growth rate in the Polish VoIP market is expected stable, and the sector’s value is expected to be positively affected by the economic deceleration in Poland. The internet telephony services offered as part of telecommunications services packages are expected to continue to enjoy growing popularity. Western European examples – especially France – prove that this form of VoIP services is the most popular among individual customers. However, the research found that the gap between prices offered by traditional telephony and VoIP has started to narrow. As a result, internet telephony is losing its greatest competitive advantage: significantly lower call rates. Nevertheless, IP telephony users will continue to be able to make free calls within the network as well as to take advantage of a wide range of value-added services.

In the long term, the researchers forecast a gradual migration of subscribers from traditional to internet telephony, which will chiefly be favoured by operators investing in NGN. Nonetheless, since investments are being postponed and the prices offered by fixed-line operators continue to decline, the process will be much slower than the market players had expected several years ago.