One fifth of population subscribed to internet

The rate of internet subscriptions per 100 population reached 22.1 in the second quarter of this year, up from 20.1 per 100 population recorded in the same period in 2004, the National Statistics Office said.

The number of narrow band and broadband subscriptions reached 49,542 and 38,408 respectively.

Television licences at the end of June stood at 122,938, amounting to 30.6 per 100 population.

Cable television subscriptions amounted to 25.4 per 100 population.

The number of mobile telephones reached 321,965 in absolute terms; that is 80.1 per 100 population.

The number of contract-based mobile telephone subscriptions reached 25,563 while the number of card plan mobile telephone subscriptions reached 296,402.

In the second quarter this year, the number of minutes consumed on mobile networks amounted to over 35.4 million minutes while those directed to the fixed line network from mobile phones amounted to around 5.4 million minutes.

The NSO said this signified a rise of 19 per cent and 14.3 per cent respectively. A rise of 4.1 per cent was recorded in the number of SMSs.

Also, a rise of 108,630 MMSs was recorded in the second period of 2005.

The minutes consumed for the WAP service stood at 31,570. This amounts to a drop of 2.5 per cent from the first quarter.

The number of minutes used in fixed line telephony on local calls decreased by around 14.1 million when compared to the first quarter 2005. The recorded drop was both in the use of residential and business fixed telephone lines for local calls' purposes. These amounted to around 1.7 million and 1.9 million respectively.

The number of minutes taken up by international calls from fixed line telephones increased by around 14.2 per cent in the second quarter when compared to the previous quarter.

The number of international calls from fixed telephone lines increased by 16.5 per cent when compared to the first quarter this year.

In the second quarter this year, the use of VOIP reached around seven million minutes, an increase of around 1.4 million minutes over the same period last year.

The pager subscriptions index decreased by 0.7 per cent from 83.8 to 83.2 over the second quarter in 2004 and 2005 respectively.