Ofcom report reveals decline in landline calls, rise for mobiles

82 billion minutes on mobiles

23 August 2007 16:13 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

There's more interesting news from Ofcom today, further to the info they released about high-def TV trends, that regards phone usage in the UK.

A new report from the British communications watchdog reveals that UK phone users are turning more toward mobile, than landline communications.

Apparently mobile phones calls now make up over a third of all time spent on phone calls.

From a total of 234 billion minutes spent on the phone in Britain, 82 billion of those were spent on mobiles.

A surprisingly low 9% of UK households only have mobile phones, while 7% only have a landline. Landline subscribers fell to 33.6 million in 2006, a drop of 1.5%.

"There are more households which are now mobile-only in terms of their phone. The first quarter of 2007 is the first time that has happened", said Ofcom spokesman Peter Phillips.

This market penetration will be depressing use to mobile phone manufacturers but it's not all bleak for operators - people spent more on mobile services.

The report shows that the average cost of all telecoms – landlines, mobiles, texts and broadband - fell to £69.85 per month for consumers in 2006, from £76.36 the previous year.

Full tags

Phones, Mobile phone industry, Ofcom, Statistics