There are now more mobile phones in the Republic than people, according to a new report by the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg).
There were 4.2 million mobile subscriptions in the Irish market in the last quarter of 2005, the latest ComReg quarterly report shows, compared to a Central Statistics Office population estimate of 4.131 million.
This gives a mobile penetration rate of 102 per cent. But this is below the EU average of 107 per cent. Only three EU countries - France, Belgium and Germany - have fewer mobiles than people.
The figures are based on the number of active Sim cards.
The main reason for someone to hold more than one mobile subscription is to have one for personal use and another for business use.
The number of people who have switched their mobile operator but kept their existing number has now reached 475,000. Some 85,000 people switched in the final quarter of 2005, most of them moving from Vodafone and O2 to Meteor, which increased its market share.
Irish mobile operators continue to earn more revenue from their customers than operators in any other EU country.
Irish mobile operators' average revenue per user is €47.60, compared to €21.86 in Sweden and a EU average of just over €30.
For a typical basket of calls for low users of post-paid 2G mobile services, the Republic was ranked tenth in terms of cost out of 19 EU markets and was more expensive than the EU average.
Ireland was the seventh most expensive country for medium users, but it has moved up from eleventh place in the previous quarter. For high users, Ireland was ranked eighth.
In these two categories, prices were lower than the EU average. The improvement in Ireland's rankings was attributed to the launch of new tariffs by O2.
There were over 58,000 new broadband subscribers in the last three months of 2005, taking the total number of subscribers to 270,000, or almost a third of all internet users.
But broadband penetration here is still the lowest among EU countries at 5.34 per cent.
Estonia, Slovenia and Lithuania all have higher broadband penetration than that of Ireland.
The rate of local loop unbundling, which allows service providers to deliver broadband services down a phone line and is the main driver of competition in the broadband market, is 2 per cent in the Republic compared to an EU average of 16 per cent.
Ireland Offline, a group that campaigns for better and more competitive telecoms services, said the high prices in the survey called into question the ability of the telecoms regulator.
