In the fourth quarter of 2004, the internet subscriptions index rose by 12.3 per cent from 232.3 in 2003 to 249.2 in 2004, figures released yesterday by the National Statistics Office show. The rate of internet subscriptions per 100 population reached 21.9, up from 19.6 per 100 population recorded in the same period in 2003. The number of narrow band and broad band subscriptions reached 53,582 and 34,388 respectively.

TV licences and cable subscriptions

TV licences at the end of December 2004 stood at 123,177, amounting to 30.7 per 100 population. In the same quarter, the cable subscriptions index rose by 1.6 per cent from 123.8 to 125.8. Cable television subscriptions amounted to 25.1 per 100 population at the end of the forth quarter of 2004.

Telephone

communication

In the period under review, the mobile phone subscriptions index showed an increase of 6.9 per cent. The number of mobile telephones reached 308,401 in absolute terms; that is 76.8 per 100 population. The number of contract based mobile telephone subscriptions reached 23,780. The number of card plan mobile telephone subscriptions reached 284,621.

In the fourth quarter this year, the number of minutes consumed to mobile networks amounted to over 31.2 million minutes while those directed to the fixed line network amounted to around 9.4 million minutes.

This signified a drop of 0.5 per cent and 2.6 per cent respectively. Drops of 1.4 per cent and 25.1 per cent respectively were recorded in the number of SMS and MMS in the quarter under review. The minutes consumed for the WAP service stood at 24,467 in the period under review.

In the fourth quarter of 2004, the fixed telephone subscriptions indices rose by 1.2 per cent from 103.4 in 2003 to 104.6 in 2004. The number of minutes used in fixed line telephony on local calls increased by around 1.8 million when compared to the third quarter 2004.

The recorded rise was in the use of business fixed telephone lines for local calls purposes. This amounted to around 2.8 million. A drop of over one million minutes was recorded in the use of household fixed line telephones for local calls. The amount of minutes taken up by international calls from fixed line telephones decreased by around 0.2 million minutes in the fourth quarter when compared to the previous quarter.

The number of international calls from fixed telephone lines decreased by 13.3 per cent when compared to the third quarter 2004.

In the fourth quarter this year, the use of VOIP reached around six million minutes; an increase of around 2.5 million minutes over the period last year. The pager subscriptions index decreased by 4.8 per cent from 86.3 to 82.2 over the fourth quarter in 2003 and 2004 respectively.