VOIP use racing ahead

It may be relatively new, but VOIP (Voice over the Internet Protocol) use has been increasing by leaps and bounds.

VOIP became available at the beginning of the year when the international telephone service was liberalised.

A total of 2,386,431 minutes of international calls were registered on VOIP in the June quarter, up from 1,106,549 minutes in the March quarter, which means more than a doubling in use.

The figures were among those released yesterday by the National Statistics Office on the information society.

During the same period the number of internet subscriptions went up by 12,964 or 22.2 per cent over the same period last year to 71,404. Consequently, these amounted to 17.9 per 100 population compared to 14.8 a year earlier.

The number of mobile subscriptions reached 275,156, an increase of 36,034 or 15.1 per cent over the same quarter last year. As a result, these went up to 69.1 per 100 population from 60.4 in the previous period. As can be seen from the accompanying graph, the number of subscriptions seems to be slowing down after the phenomonal growth of the past years.

NSO said the figures have been revised to consider only actual live subscriptions, rather than the existing or previously used mobile numbers.

Cable television subscriptions also seemed to have reached a plateau. They edged upwards by 2.2 per cent to 95,107 when compared to the 93,039 of the second quarter last year. However, a comparison between June 2003 and March 2003 points to a decrease of 1,133 subscriptions.

Therefore, the ratio of these subscriptions per 100 population rose to 23.9 in the June quarter from 23.5 a year ago.

At the same time, the number of satellite receiver licences went up by 2,876 to 16,031 in June 2003, or 21.9 per cent when compared to the second quarter last year.

As a result, the country now has four satellite receivers per 100 population.

In the period under review, decreases of 7.7 per cent and 12.5 per cent were recorded in pager subscriptions and in the number of two-way radio licences respectively.