The Institut Luxembourgeois de Régulation has published a 2015 statistical report for the constantly evolving telecommunications industry in the Grand Duchy.
The report provides information on the activities of service providers and customer consumptionm based on statistical data collected from said service providers.
The telecommunications sector is characterised by its dynamism and innovation. The development of very high speed (combined fixed and mobile infrastructures) enables the quality of existing services to be improved and the emergence of "OTT" Internet services. An efficient infrastructure is therefore essential.
At the end of 2015, the penetration rate of high speed Internet access stood at 39.1% against 30.8% the previous year, representing an 8.3 point increase compared to the end of 2014. This trend was explained by growing demand from end customers in very high speed Internet access higher or equal to 30Mbps and an offer adapted to operators.
There was a clear attitude among operators to market their services in the form of bundles or multi-service deals. The Institut noticed that out of five high speed broadband offers, four were marketed with at least one other service, primarily in combination with a fixed line or TV access.
The voice telephone service on fixed and mobile networks was slightly down, from 1,818.3 million minutes in 2014 to 1,782.7 million minutes last year, whilst Internet telephony (voice over IP) continued to gain traction. The number of fixed telephone connections for voice telephony (analogue and digital technology) fell significantly.
Data traffic on mobile network rose impressively to 11,861 TByte, marking +67% annually, as did volumes of voice and data communications in Roaming, which more than doubled.
Fixed infrastructure is experiencing a technological migration to fibre-optic; at the end of 2015 the fibre-optics coverage rate was around 60% of households, showing a net increase of some 15% compared with the previous year. This falls in line with the government's strategy for ultra-hugh speed for 2020.
In terms of cable TV network, its cover remained stable with some 70% enjoying a connection. A major part of fixed connections continues to rely on the support of a twister copper pair, particularly in VDSL.
The total income for the sector also remained stable at €538.8 million, with revenues from mobile services slightly exceeding the income generated by the marketing of fixed services. Alternative operator revenues continued to increase to hold 45.3% of global market revenues.
The monthly revenue per active SIM card, or mobile user, remained stabled at €25.6, whilst fixed line telephone revenue declined to €24.8. Internet access revenue rose to €33.6.
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