Communities opposing telecommunications masts in their areas are opting out of the communications revolution because the next step in telephony is based on radio technology, the director of telecommunications regulation, Ms Etain Doyle, said yesterday.

Stressing the importance of both fixed and mobile radio-based telephony, Ms Doyle said: "Radio-based telephony is how Ireland is going to deliver the Internet to every home." She added that communities which prevented them would pay a "very high economic price".

Having conducted an audit of how RTE, MMDS operators, Eircell and ESAT operate their masts, she said she felt there was no serious health risk associated with living near masts. However, RTE did have to correct two masts which had exceeded emissions limits, in Athlone and Tullamore, as reported in The Irish Times last July.

Ms Doyle predicted telephone charges, including the cost of accessing the Internet, will fall as competition increases and interconnect rates fall. An audit by KPMG of Paris of interconnect charges the rate Telecom Eireann charges for calls coming into its network is due to conclude next month, when the director will set what she called a "forward-looking" cost-oriented rate. This is understood to mean the rate will be based on Telecom Eireann's future, rather than present, costs. Figures released by the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR) show Irish interconnection rates have fallen from around 10p per minute before April this year to around 2p per minute currently. This is still more than twice the British rate and above that of several western European countries.

On the need for broadband access, seen as crucial for the successful development of electronic commerce, Ms Doyle was confident that liberalisation and additional infrastructure will "bridge the gap". She also said she expects mobile telephony charges to fall further with the entrance of the third operator, Meteor, with whom licence discussions are nearly complete. The ODTR is, however, keeping open the option of a fourth cellular operator.

The regulator said additional numbers based on geographic areas will soon be made available to new operators. Eireann to offer second phone lines into private dwellings. houses.

She also announced a new prefix 048 for dialling all numbers in Northern Ireland when it becomes a single access code area next July.