Key organisations in the Information Society technologies and content sector in Poland include governmental and local administration, private business (SMEs), industry and services, research and technology institutions and associations, and the media sector.

The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications is responsible for telecommunications policy and regulation. It is the supervising institution of the following public utility units:

• The Polish Post (Poczta Polska)
• The Telecommunications Institute (Instytut Lacznosci)

From 1 January 2001 the new governmental independent body, (based on PITIP and PAR) is the Office of Telecommunications Regulation (OTR). The President of the OTR, Mr Marek Zdrojewski, is appointed by the President of the Council of Ministers for a 5-year term.

The competencies of the President of the Office of Telecommunications Regulation (OTR) include:

• duties relative to the regulation of telecommunications activities and frequency management, as well as the monitoring of compliance with the requirements of electromagnetic compatibility, provided for by the present Act and provisions issued in pursuance thereof,
• collaboration with the minister competent for posts and telecommunications in drafting legal acts within the competencies of the President of the OTR,
• assessment of the operation of the market of telecommunications services and of the telecommunications equipment market,
• intervention in matters related to the functioning of the market of telecommunications services on its own initiative or brought to its attention by the parties concerned, in particular by users and operators, including the making of decisions on these matters within the scope provided for by the present Act,
• creating conditions for the development of the domestic radiocommunications service by securing the necessary frequency assignments for Poland and access to satellite-orbital resources,
• duties related to national defence and security,
• co-operation with international telecommunications organisations and competent foreign national authorities, within the competencies of the President of the OTR,

The Polish Parliament is in charge of establishing all the fundamental legal acts in Poland. The Parliamentary Commission for Transport and Telecommunications, which is the National Regulatory Authority, is in charge of stimulating the process of fine-tuning new and amended legal acts in the telecommunications sector.

Włodzimierz Marciński is the Counsellor in the Republic of Poland Mission in the European Union, Brussels, responsible for Chapter 19 "Telecommunications and IST" in negotiations of EU accession and Information Systems in EU institutions.

Ministries who are involved in the preparation of Information Society related acts are:

Ministry of Telecommunications; Ministry of Economy; the State Committee for Scientific Research (Ministry of Science), Ministry of Administrations and Internal Affairs and the Committee for European Integration. Special departments or sections dedicated to Information Society development are set up in almost all ministries.

Under the Act of Telecommunications Law (July 2000) the President of the Council of Ministers shall appoint to the Telecommunications Council one representative each of the minister competent for posts and telecommunications, the Minister of Defence, the minister competent for internal affairs, the Chairman of the National Council for Radio and Television, the Head of the State Protection Office and of the President of the Office for the Protection of Competition and Consumers selected amongst the candidates put forth by these authorities, persons pre-eminent in terms of their knowledge and experience in matters coming within the competencies of the Council, including candidates designated by professional associations, scientific centres and research units, as well as organisations representing operators, users and telecommunications service providers, telecommunications equipment manufacturers and suppliers, as well as organisations involved in the construction of telecommunications infrastructure.

Since 1995 CSO representatives have participated as observers at the meetings of the Western European EDIFACT Board Message Development Group 6 (WE/EB MD6) - Statistics and at the Eurostat Working Group "Statistics, Telematic Networks & Electronic Data Interchange", as well as at EU IDA (Interchange of Data between Administrations) programme events.

The State Committee for Scientific Research is responsible for RTD policy in Poland.

The State Committee for Scientific Research (KBN) is compatible to ministries of research and development in other countries and it is chaired by Prof. Andrzej Wiszniewski coordinates the growth of the Polish Internet and supports development of computer and Internet facilities for scientific community in Poland. The KBN Under Secretary of State, Ms Małgorzata Kozłowska, is responsible in for the Information Society issues.

A representative of the State Committee for Scientific Research is taking part in the work of the Joint High Level Committee for the Information Society and of the ENGP (European Group for Policy Co-ordination for Academic and Industrial Research Networks). The Polish representatives are invited to the Information Society Forum and the Industrial Round Table.

The Parliamentary representative Ms Grazyna Staniszewska is the President of the Interkl@sa Programme Board. The Programme was presented during "Komputer Expo 2000" in Warsaw, during European Ministerial Conference in May 2000 and on several others important international and nationwide events.

NGOs dealing with IS are the Polish Chamber of Information Technology and Telecommunications, Polish Chamber of Electronics and Telecommunications, the Association of Polish Software Market "PRO", the Polish Forum of Information Society, Cities in the Internet Association, the Polish Information Processing Society, Society for Open Systems Development, Scientific Society for Information Processing in Economy.

The new organisation responsible for EDI promotion has been established. The Committee for Rationalisation of Business Procedures POLPRO is a joint initiative of the EDI Centre Poland and National Chamber of Commerce. The secretary of the Committee POLPRO is Mr Eugeniusz Danikiewicz.

The Society of the Rural Telecommunications RUTEL is active in awareness actions dealing with development of telecommunications infrastructure on remote rural areas. The RUTEL Committee Chairman is Mr Franciszek Witos. RUTEL closely co-operates with the Polish Electricians Association. RUTEL is the co-organiser of annually 'Rural Telecommunications" Conference in Kielce.

After formal registration, the Polish Information Society Forum (SPIN) conducted its first meeting on 10 January 2000 in Warsaw. Mr Jozef Orzel was elected the president

Among computer and telecommunications magazines and journals in Poland are "Teleinfo", "Computerworld", "Internet", "Enter", "Networld". Many of them provides yearly rankings of companies.

TELEINFO 1000 Raport, a 2-volume directory of the Polish tele-computer market, lists 1000 biggest IT companies in alphabetical order. This directory includes full address, legal status, key persons, date of founding, number of employees, sector and profile, services, short description of activities, and target clients. Some companies also include general financial data. In addition, there is an alphabetical index of company names with telephone numbers.

Another ranking is the list of 100, which consists of the "tycoons" of the Polish computer and telecommunications business. The list was published in TELEINFO 4/2000 on January 24. On top of the list is Ryszard Krauze, president of the Prokom Software S.A., followed by Boguslaw Ciupał, the founder of Tele-Fonika s.c. and the winner of the 1999 ranking. Included also in the top twenty are presidents and owners of ComArch SS.A. Optimus S.A., Techmex S.A., 2SI S.A., ABC Data Ltd, Liberty Poland S.A., Grupa TCH, Apexim S.A., FF Computers Ltd, Computerland S.A., Lumena Ltd, Baza Ltd, MSCI Ltd, Hector S.A., Net-Technology S.A., and Invar Group.