Irish mobile phone usage is climbing sharply despite the global economic slowdown, a new report from the Office of the Director of Telecommunications has shown.
In its quarterly report, the ODTR said mobile penetration increased by 5 per cent between July and September this year to 2.8 million users. This is 75 per cent of the potential market.
Text messaging has increased by 150 per cent in the last twelve months with each subscriber sending an average of 46 SMS messages per month.
The three mobile operators in the Irish market, Eircell Vodafone, Digifone and Meteor have 58 per cent, 40 per cent and 2 per cent market share respectively
Telecoms Regulator, Ms Etain Doyle said although liberalisation in 1998 had resulted 20 per cent of the fixed line business being held by new entrants, Eircom remains dominant, supplying 80 per cent of land lines.
Eircom was recently purchased by an international telecommunications consortium, Valentia, chaired by Mr Tony O’Reilly.
Total revenues for the fixed, mobile and broadcasting markets at the end of September are euro 3.2 billion, with a 2 per cent increase during the last quarter. This sector now accounts for 3.1 per cent of GNP.
With regard to 3G services, Ms Doyle called for further legislative powers for the implementation and regulation of these services.
"I want and need badly additional enforcement powers to move things on," she said.
Ms Doyle said discussions were at an advanced stage with the Department of Finance. She added there was "still some interest" in Irish 3G licences being expressed by telecoms companies.
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