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Poland: The Biggest VoIP Operator Emerges
[April 08, 2010]

Poland: The Biggest VoIP Operator Emerges


The Polish Internet telephony market has witnessed the merger of its two leaders. FreecoNet, enjoying huge popularity in the segment of small and medium enterprises, joined with Tlenofon which, in turn, has a strong position among individual customers. The result is Poland’s largest VoIP operator looking to establish broad cooperation with foreign partners soon.

The merger is part of the consolidation process in the Polish VoIP market, commenced by FreecoNet over a year ago when it took over almost 30 smaller businesses. It is estimated that after the merger the new operator – temporarily named FreecoNet Tlenofon SA – will have a share of about 40 percent in the Polish pure VoIP market. This translates into about 65,000-70,000 active customers. According to the company in the entire Polish pure VoIP market there are currently about 200,000 entities using Internet telephony.

“The potential of our enterprises after the merger will make it easier to perform further acquisitions. The growing confidence in the Internet telephony and in its set of value added services in Poland favors fast development. This view is supported by the data from, for example, FreecoNet, indicating that the number of business customers in 2009 grew at an average monthly rate of 8 percent. Businesses will be more and more willingly switching to VoIP, following the example and advice of those who have already decided to do so. The Internet telephony in Poland is also gaining more and more confidence among individual customers” – explains Jan Wyrwinski, CEO of FreecoNet Tlenofon SA.


Also the VoIP platform used by FreecoNet, employing cutting-edge technology, contributes to the operator’s dynamic development. It already provides the most comprehensive telephony offer for business, including a variety of set of value-added services such as the IP PBX (News - Alert) virtual phone system, virtual IVR and virtual Call Center (with an embedded text-to-speech feature), Call Recorder, Mass Dial, FreecoNet Mobile, FlashPhone, FlashCall, FreecoNet Direct, Voice XML. FreecoNet has also recently become the first operator in Poland and one of the first operators worldwide to offer HD Voice, without any additional charges. Another magnet attracting new customers is provided by the low calling rates – or even free calls. That is because in FreecoNet the users can call, free of charge, selected numbers registered on the platform – no matter which operator and country they come from. It is also possible to obtain a new telephone number or move an existing one to FreecoNet.

“With such an advanced offer we are going to prove tough competitors to traditional telecoms but our plans are not restricted to just the Polish market. We also want to expand, for example, into other European markets and into the US – through cooperation with foreign VoIP operators like us. This cooperation might include traffic exchange (free calls between networks) or an exchange of experiences in the field of technology. We might also establish other forms of cooperation to be arranged during negotiations with potential partners” – announces Jan Wyrwinski.

Polish VoIP market is the largest one in Central Europe and one of the most significant VoIP markets throughout the entire continent. For example, Skype (News - Alert) estimates the number of its Polish users at about 4 million. The fast growing popularity of the Internet telephony in Poland results from the gradual weakening of the position of Poland’s incumbent telecom operator, TP SA, and the constant increase in the number of persons with an access to broadband Internet. The consolidation of the Polish VoIP market is a progressive trend. Already in 2008 the first market-integrating actions took place (for example incorporating the users of about 30 smaller businesses into the FreecoNet platform, as mentioned above). In 2010 these actions will intensify, leaving only a few of the strongest operators in the market. Their potential, including innovative and globally advanced technological solutions, should enable them to compete with traditional operators in Poland and to enter other markets.

Many commentators believe that the Polish VoIP market is still at an early development stage compared to Western European markets. Last year's report by Telegeography indicates that the number of VoIP users in Europe has grown from 6 million in 2005 to 45 million at the end of 2009. This represented the value of more than 4 billion Euro, whereas the traditional telephony market was worth 36 billion Euro at the time. The commentators agree, however, that the traditional operators are in retreat.

More information FreecoNet SA is a telecommunication platform for individual users and small companies, integrating solutions offered by a number of operators and telecommunication technologies available on the market (VoIP, PSTN, GSM). FreecoNet enables free-of-charge calls between subscribers of different networks who have registered their telephone numbers with the company. The lowest rates for calls to unregistered numbers are guaranteed by TelArena, FreecoNet’s innovative module in which a number of independent operators compete for every call and the winner is always the one to offer the lowest rate for a given direction. FreecoNet offers also other advanced solutions: a set of value-added services for business (such as Virtual Fax, Call Recorder, IVR, Call Center) and FreecoNet Mobile for cellular phones. The platform is accessed via an intuitive Web panel. More information on FreecoNet: www.freeconet.com.

Grupa o2 sp. z o.o. is the publisher of the Internet portal o2.pl, provider of free e-mail service, of the Tlen.pl instant messaging service and the Internet telephony service Tlenofon – the leader in the Polish market. The o2.pl Internet portal includes a number of topical services such as Kafeteria.pl, Pardon.pl and HotMoney.pl. The company also owns Radar.pl – a price-comparison service, the announcement services najDom.pl, najAuto.pl, the social network services Mixer.pl and Pinger (News - Alert).pl. o2’s portfolio contains also such brands as Pudelek.pl, Wrzuta.pl or Sfora.pl. Grupa o2 Sp. z o.o. is also one of the fastest growing technological companies in Europe. It has won a number of awards, for example for the Entrepreneur of the Year 2004 in a poll organized by Ernst & Young, high positions in the first five of Deloitte (News - Alert)’s ranking Top 50 Technology Fast Companies 2008 and 2009, the award for the Company of the Year 2004 from InternetStandard editors, People of the Year of the Polish Internet 2006 - a Webstar Internet Academy award. More information on Tlenofon: www.tlenofon.pl.

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