Phone users in Ireland are paying the highest out of all the European Union countries for line rental charges, it was revealed today.
Statistics from the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) showed Irish phone users pay €10 more for residential monthly line charges than most of the other member states.
Damien Mulley, chairman of the internet lobby group Ireland Offline, said: “The average EU price including VAT comes in around €15 a month for line rental where it is just under €25 a month in Ireland.
“We have been higher in the EU for the past year or two due to three price rises over the space of a 12-month period”
ComReg blamed part of the price on the population spread across the country - as the high population density in other countries can mean lower costs.
The first-quarter report from ComReg showed that fixed line revenues stood at €504 million for the first quarter of the year - a 2 per cent rise on the previous period.
Mr Mulley, who is part of the group representing 2,300 disgruntled home and business internet users unhappy with the current services available, said Ireland Offline would not object to paying the line rental charges if the network across the country was of high-standard.
“We have the highest line rental in Europe but our failure rates are at around 20 per cent at the moment. In the UK and Northern Ireland the failure rate is 0.5 per cent,” he said.
“Around 99.9 per cent of the lines would be Eircom. Another phone company like Smart, they would get wholesale line rental from Eircom.”
The ComReg statistics showed internet broadband subscribers had grown by 16 per cent quarter on quarter.
However, Mr Mulley said broadband uptake was slowing which was placing Ireland further behind the rest of the EU.
The latest figures from the OECD show Ireland's broadband penetration rate is one of the lowest in Europe.
Mr Mulley said the statistics showed there were only 152,300 using broadband this month which was far short of Communication Minister Noel Dempsey's goal of 600,000.
PA