The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) today released its Quarterly Report on the Electronic Communications market for the period (1 July to 30 September) Q3 2017.
Fixed broadband subscriptions increased to 1.391 million, a 0.9% increase this quarter and were up by 3.6% compared to Q3 2016. The estimated household (fixed and mobile) broadband penetration rate at the end of Q3 was 86%, higher than the EU average of 83%, while the estimated household (fixed) broadband penetration rate at the end of Q3 2017 was 70.9%, up from 68.6% in Q3 2016.
Average fixed broadband speeds continue to increase. In Q3 2017 approximately 81.5% of all fixed broadband subscriptions were equal to or greater than 10Mbps up from 76.5% in Q3 2016. 70.5% of all fixed broadband subscriptions were equal to or greater than 30Mbps, up from 62.5% in Q3 2016.
Total voice traffic minutes decreased by 0.7% this quarter and were 3.6 lower than in Q3 2016. Mobile minutes form the majority of voice minutes at 77.5%, with fixed minutes representing the remaining 22.5%. Mobile voice minutes decreased by 0.4% while fixed voice minutes decreased by 1.5% this quarter.
On a monthly basis an average mobile voice subscriber used 212 minutes (-0.8% annual decrease), sent 83 texts (-12.8 annual decrease) and used 4.5GB of data (+64.6% annual increase).
Of all mobile subscriptions 46.0% were actively using 4G Networks in Q3 2017, up from 38.4% in Q3 2016. Machine-to-machine (M2M) subscriptions increased to 788,953, a 21.8% annual increase and make up 13.2% of all mobile subscriptions in Q3 2017.
The full quarterly report for Q3 2017 – ComReg 17/108 is available on the ComReg website www.comreg.ie/publications
