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Brzeg in the southwest) by the Soviet Air Force. Of the remaining 37 airfields, seven are militarily active with other than fighter or bomber aircraft, three are strictly civilian in usage, 16 are dispersal/deployment airfields, and 11 are highway landing strips, most of which were built in the early 1970's.

Poland has only one flight information region, the Warsaw FIR. The airways system is so designed that civil air traffic does not overfly military airfields. A new system of controlled airspaces in the Warsaw FIR was introduced in March 1968.

Details of airfields used by operational combat units of the Polish and Soviet Air Forces, and the one naval airfield, are summarized in Figure 11. Warsaw/Okecie, Warsaw/Boernerowo, Balice, Rzeszow/Jasionka and Poznan/Lawica are also included because of their special importance.

K. Telecommunications (S)

Poland's strategic location makes it a vital transit center for communications with the USSR, Czechoslovakia, East Germany and the Scandinavian countries. The basic national telecommunication (telecom) system has been developed primarily to fulfill requirements of the state, and the needs of the general public have been a secondary consideration. The networks are relatively modern and effective; however, the facilities are somewhat less developed than those of the neighboring countries - Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and the USSR. Services include domestic and international telephone, regular telegraph, telex (private teleprinter subscriber service), facsimile, data transfer, AM and FM radio broadcasting, wired broadcast, and TV. Nearly 50% of the villages have telephone connections, and most industrial towns have automatic local exchanges. Telegraph facilities are also available in most communities, but they handle only a small portion of the telecom traffic.

The resources, administration, and operation of the civil telecom systems are the responsibility of the Ministry of Communications (MOC), which is directly subordinate to the Council of Ministers.

All civil telecom systems are based on the organization and facilities available at the provincial level of administration. All trunk and most district channels are in underground cables, and an extensive open-wire system still exists in rural areas. Both old cables and newly laid special carrier-frequency (CF) cables use 12-, 24- and 60-channel CF equipment. The main center for switching intercity telecom traffic is in Warsaw, where telegraph circuits can be automatically switched between major cities. On 1 January 1972, telephones, the most important means of communications, numbered 1,970,856 units or about six per 100 population. Over 85% of the telephones are connected to automatic exchanges, which have capacities ranging from 200 to 15,000 lines.

Radiobroadcast service is provided by 28 AM transmitters and 40 FM transmitters and reaches about 96% of the population. Three national programs originate at the main studios in Warsaw and are transmitted from main stations in the Warsaw suburbs. Program I is transmitted by a low-frequency AM transmitter station in Marysin, Program II is transmitted by a medium-frequency transmitter station in Wola Rasztowska, and Program III is an FM program transmitter from the Marysin station and carried by regional network FM stations. The foreign-language broadcasting service operates 12 MF-HF transmitters and provides programs for audiences in Europe, Australia, Africa, and South America. As of June 1972 there were 5.7 million radiobroadcast receivers in use.

A single program is transmitted to about 78% of the population by 18 regional TV transmitters. Nearly all programs originate in the main TV studios at the Warsaw Palace of Culture and Science. The principal transmitters and studios in the TV network are joined by microwave relay routes; international links are available with the USSR and East Germany. An experimental color TV program is transmitted weekly by transmitters in Katowice, Lodz, Warsaw and Wroclaw. About 5.3 million TV receivers were in use as of August 1972.

International landlines are an extension of the domestic wire networks. The most significant line is an underground four-tube coaxial cable interconnecting Poland with the USSR and Czechslovakia via Katowice. This cable also provides for exchanging international TV broadcasts. Radio-relay links extend to Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and the USSR. Coaxial and single-conductor submarine cables provide international connections to Scandinavian and Western European countries via Denmark. Poland has direct telegraph channels to 27 countries; the automatic public telegraph (GENTEX) exchange in Warsaw has direct channels to Prague, Budapest, Moscow, and East Berlin, and access to the GENTEX network of Western Europe is provided via Hamburg.

Special-purpose telecom systems are operated by various government organizations, including the Agency for Electrical Power, the state railroads, public safety security forces, and the Ministries of Internal

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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070025-1