Internet speed ‘is on the rise’

Broadband is becoming increasingly prevalent in Ireland while speeds are also picking up, according to a new report from the country’s communications regulator.

ComReg’s latest quarterly report points towards an increase in fixed broadband subscriptions which are now almost 5% higher than in the same period last year.

In the second quarter of 2015, subscriptions climbed 1.2% on the previous three-month period and stood at 1.29m at the end of June.

Taking both fixed and mobile broadband into account the estimated broadband penetration (80%) rate remained above the EU average of 78%.

Average broadband speeds also remained on the up with 51.3% of all fixed broadband subscriptions equal to or greater than 30 Mbps compared to 40.1% in Q2 2014.

Meanwhile, more than 65% of subscriptions provide speeds of 10 Mbps or greater as opposed to 59% in the same period last year.

The Government’s latest National Broadband Plan announced in July aims to bring close to 40% of the population, or 1.8m citizens, up to speed with 30Mbps connections or better.

“There is no point in rolling out digital education or e-health services unless every citizen in the country can avail of broadband,” Communications Minister Alex White said at the time.

The €512m plan ambitiously aims to provide 85% of Irish premises with high-speed broadband by 2018, rising to 100% in 2020.

Some 17% of all mobile subscribers actively used 4G mobile networks and data usage continues to rise, increasing by 84.1% in the year to Q2 2015.

Irish mobile users are continuing to move away from text messaging, according to the quarterly report, with a near-10% fall in a year as messaging apps such as Viber and WhatsApp continue to grow in popularity.

The total number of text messages sent by mobile users came in at 1.69 billion in the second quarter of the year.

The ComReg figures also reveal the number of fixed voice service subscriptions has decreased by 0.4% since last quarter to 1.5 million.

Total voice traffic decreased by 0.4% from the previous quarter, but increased by 1.1% since Q2 2014.

Fixed voice traffic has declined by 7.6% while mobile traffic increased by 4.8% compared to Q2 2014.

Average revenue per user dipped slightly from €24.98 to €24.75 in the month.