MOST IRISH people have given up using public payphones and are well on their way to getting rid of their landlines, according to an EU Commission survey on communications across Europe.
More than three-quarters of Irish people say they never use public payphones, close to the European average.
Elsewhere, about one-third of Austrians and Spaniards still use payphones, compared with just 3 per cent of Cypriots and 4 per cent of Finns.
Landlines are also falling out of favour, with about one-quarter of Europeans reporting they use just mobiles. Some 69 per cent of Irish homes have both a landline and a mobile, 20 per cent have a mobile only and 9 per cent have a landline only.
In Finland and the Czech Republic up to two-thirds of homes have a mobile phone but no landline.
The prevalence of computers and access to the internet in Ireland is on a par with other European countries. Some 58 per cent of Irish households have at least one computer and 49 per cent have internet access.
However, just 20 per cent of Irish homes have broadband access, compared with 36 per cent across the EU. Conversely, Irish homes are more likely to have dial-up access (22 per cent), which is slower, than the rest of Europe (10 per cent).
The internet penetration rate in Ireland has increased from 36 per cent at the beginning of 2006 to 49 per cent at the end of 2007. Use of broadband internet access has jumped from 7 per cent to 20 per cent over the same period.
One-fifth of Irish respondents said they were dissatisfied with the performance of their internet connection.
While most of us have computers we make less use of them than other Europeans, the survey shows. For example, in Lithuania 58 per of homes with internet access use their computer to make phone calls, while in Ireland the figure is just 13 per cent.
Irish consumers are also under-exploiting the communications technology available to them. Buying two or more communications services as a bundle does not seem to be a widespread practice in Ireland. The average European is twice as likely to buy a combined package. Bundles are becoming more common in the EU as a whole, but the situation in Ireland has remained unchanged since winter 2006.
The survey also tested recognition of the common European emergency number, 112. Just one Irish person in eight was able to identify the number, 10 years after it was introduced alongside the national emergency number, 999.
