Ireland’s Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) has published its quarterly report on the country’s communications sector covering October-December 2022, in which it said there had been a 2.2% year-on-year increased in fixed broadband subscriptions. According to the regulator’s data, fixed broadband subscriptions increased to 1.611 million as of 31 December 2022, up from 1.57 million a year earlier. Notably, a rising proportion of the total were connected via fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) technology, with a milestone figure of just over half a million (500,801) such subscriptions reported for end-2022, representing an almost 35% jump from the 371,912 FTTP-based subscriptions reported a year earlier.
Amid this increased uptake for fibre-based fixed broadband services, ComReg noted that an ever-increasing proportion of users are benefiting from higher download speeds. According to the watchdog, at the end of 2022 more than 89% of the country’s fixed broadband subscriptions were to a service offering downlink speeds of at least 35Mbps, with just over 31% at that date having access to download speeds in excess of 500Mbps.
In the mobile sector, meanwhile, total subscriptions (excluding M2M and mobile broadband) rose to 5.690 million, up from 5.374 million at end-2021. Furthermore, Comreg noted that 5G uptake continues apace: there were a total of 988,164 subscriptions to the latest generation of mobile broadband technology at the end of the reporting period, up from 392,082 as of end-2021.
Fixed voice subscriptions remained on a downward trend, however, falling to 1.222 million at 31 December 2022, down from 1.293 million a year earlier, with residential subscriptions accounting for the bulk of the total – 1.039 million, down from 1.103 million.