Irish telecoms industry revenues continued to show signs of growth for the third quarter in a row, with revenues up 3.1pc to €998m in the fourth quarter. However, total annual revenues of €3.87bn for 2010 are still below the €4.04bn reported in 2009.
According to ComReg’s latest quarterly report, internet and broadband subscriptions for the fourth quarter grew by 2.3pc and 2.8pc to reach 1.6m and 1.5m respectively.
Cable and mobile broadband, in particular, continued to drive total broadband growth.
Mobile broadband now represents just less than 40pc of all broadband subscriptions in Ireland, second only to DSL at 46.1pc.
Fixed broadband penetration per capita reached 22.8pc, up 0.2pc on the previous quarter and almost 1pc on last year.
If you include mobile broadband, total penetration per capita came in at 35.6pc.
Total LLU (unbundled local loop) lines increased 35pc to 50,999, due to a large increase in shared LLU lines which now stand at 36,820.
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Consumer adoption of higher (advertised) broadband speeds showed 81.8pc of all broadband subscriptions in the 2Mbps to 8Mbps range, up from 73pc last year.
Overall, mobile subscriptions in Ireland was static at around 5.2m, with only a 49,000 increase in subscribers.
The number of mobile numbers ported in Q4 of 2010 was 115,216, the largest amount ported in a quarterly period since mobile number portability was introduced in 2003.
In terms of digital TV, some 71pc of TV homes in Ireland received their signal digitally (by satellite or cable) as of January this year.
