The communications regulator says there were 1.2 million broadband subscriptions at the end of last year, an increase of more than 35% on the previous year.
According to ComReg's quarterly report, this gave a broadband penetration rate of 27%. When mobile broadband was excluded, however, there were just over 891,000 broadband subscriptions.
ComReg says there were 5.3 million mobile phone subscriptions, while the number of text messages reached just over 2.8 billion, compared with 2.5 billion in the third quarter.
The report also shows that companies' revenue from the communications market fell by 0.7% in the quarter to just under €1.1 billion. Voice traffic minutes increased 1% from Q3 to 5.1 billion, with mobile now accounting for almost 58% of these. Eircom has a 68% share of the fixed line market, with BT next on 14.5%.
In the mobile market, revenues rose 3% from Q3, though they have fallen 4.6% over the year. Average monthly revenue per user - a measure of how much money mobile operators make from customers - was €41.20 in Q4, above the EU average of €25.80. But the ARPU figure has been falling more quickly in Ireland, the report says.
Vodafone had 41% of the mobile market in the quarter, with O2 next on just under 38%, Meteor on 18% and 3 Ireland on 2.8%.
