THE END of the line for landlines is looming. That’s according to a study showing the Republic is abandoning them in favour of mobile phones at a faster rate than almost everywhere else in Europe.
The EU Barometer survey found that by early this year a third of Irish households had mobile phone access only, an increase of 7 per cent in two years.
Irish people are now the fourth most likely in the EU to get rid of their landlines, although they remain well behind the Czech Republic where 81 per cent of households only have access to mobile phones.
Even mobile phone operators will be looking at the trends in the survey nervously as the study shows 32 per cent of Irish households now routinely make calls over the internet compared to an EU average of 28 per cent.
The E-Communications Household Survey was carried out between February 9th and March 8th this year, and used a sample of 27,000 households representative of the EU population.
It found that 2 per cent of Irish households have no phone access at all, a rise of 1 per cent since the last survey was carried out at the end of 2009.
Irish phone users are considerably more inclined to use prepaid mobile phones, and the survey found that 56 per cent of Irish households had mobile access on an exclusively prepaid basis compared with an EU average of 34 per cent.
Three-quarters of Irish households limit their mobile calls because of cost concerns – up 3 per cent since the last survey – and Irish respondents were also more likely than most of their EU counterparts to limit their use of mobile internet access because they are concerned about cost
Computer access in the Republic now stands at 69 per cent compared to an EU average of 68 per cent, while 58 per cent have broadband, up 4 per cent since end 2009. The EU average is 55 per cent.