At the Tuanz Telecommunications Day conference on Tuesday, telecommunications commissioner Ross Patterson said his organisation was seeing early signs that a growing number of New Zealanders are ditching their landlines and going mobile-on
At the Tuanz Telecommunications Day conference on Tuesday, telecommunications commissioner Ross Patterson said his organisation was seeing early signs that a growing number of New Zealanders are ditching their landlines and going mobile-only.
“Mobile voice minutes are increasing, fixed voice minutes are falling - an early indication of fixed to mobile substitution,” said Dr Patterson.
Overall, mobile connections are growing, while the number of landlines is flat.
The Commerce Commission's Annual Telecommunications Monitoring Report 2009, released today, backs up this thesis.
The commission, which sent questionnaires to industry players, as well as drawing on other sources, also found that there are now 4.9 million cellular connections in New Zealand (our population is 4.4 million), up from 4.1 million connections three years ago.
That equates to 114% penetration. Some European countries are over the 150% market as people juggle more than one sim card, and increasingly use data sticks or 3G-enabled netbooks or notebooks for mobile connections.
