Gift of the gab: We spend the most on mobiles

IRISH chatterboxes spend more money every month on their mobile phones than anyone else in Europe — despite Ireland’s sky-high calling rates.

Only the British pay more for mobile calls at 20.19 cent per minute on average compared with Ireland’s 19.25c rate.

Despite Ireland having the second highest call costs in Europe, the Irish spend on average €44.66 per month on their mobile phones — the highest of any European Union country.

The French are the second biggest spenders at €34.33 per month, but they get the cheapest phone calls at 14.13c a minute on average.

The French spend four hours and three minutes per month each on their mobile phones, making them Europe’s leading chatterboxes, while the Irish are in second place on three hours and 52 minutes a month each.

Last night the Consumers’ Association of Ireland (CAI) called on government phone watchdog ComReg to bring down the costs of calls.

“It is time for action and ComReg must call in the mobile phone networks and insist on a plan of action to reduce the costs within two years,” said the association’s chairman James Doorley.

The CAI wants to see Irish consumers spending no more than the EU average of €27.74 every month.

The figures on phone rates were revealed in ComReg’s latest quarterly bulletin on the phone, broadband and TV industries.

Between July and September, Irish mobile phone owners spent a collective 2.2 billion minutes talking — up 23% on the same months last year.

They also found time to send 127 text messages each per month — up from 107 in the same period in 2006.

Once again, Ireland was found to have more active mobile phones (4.9 million) than people (4.23 million) though the ratio was slightly below the EU average.

Vodafone is Ireland’s largest mobile phone company with 44.9% market share with O2 second on 33.1%, Meteor third on 18.4% and 3 last with 3.6%.

Tesco mobile started operating in October and was not covered by the quarterly report.

Yesterday the Irish Cellular Industry Association, which represents mobile phone firms, denied consumers were paying over the odds for calls.

“For a small country like Ireland we have quite a strong level of competition,” said association director Tommy McCabe.

“Mobiles will increasingly be used for different applications like voice, text and broadband,” he said.

* www.comreg.ie