Próba charakterystyki społeczeństwa informacyjnego w krajach kandydujących na tle UE-15

The paper aims to provide a statistical overview on some crucial Information society indicators in Candidate countries in the context of the situation in EU related fields. The study is based on the Eurostat data. It provides, among other things, a comparison about the number of PCs, Internet hosts, Internet users, mobile phone subscriptions and IT expenditure in Candidate countries.  The number of Internet hosts per 100 inhabitants and PCS in Candidate countries is relatively low compared to the EU average. Many indicators (on average) in the Candidate countries are equivalent to just under one-quarter of the EU average. However, the Candidate countries have continued to record considerable growth, higher one than in the EU. Differences between Candidate countries are significant: while the density of PCs and mobile phones in Slovenia was close to the EU average in 2001, it was less than 20% of the EU average in Romania.  Finally, the study attempts to indicate a method of Candidate countries informational technologies standards discrimination. The employed analytical method is regression decision trees.