Telecom

Since January 1, 1998 – the date telecommunications markets were opened EU-wide – no stone has been left standing in the Austrian telecom sector. There was hardly another European country that knew how to make better use of the new freedom than Austria. In 2007 Austrians spent 17 billion minutes on the phone and sent 3.3 billion text messages.

The Austrians’ most favoured companion is the mobile phone. In 2007, they spent 3.6 billion euros on mobile phone call. The market penetration is 118 percent.

Broadband Internet

In Austria, there are 1.6 million broadband connections and in addition 590,000 mobile broadband connections. This corresponds to a penetration of 62 percent. The growth rates in broadband are enormous.
Within a single year, from 2006 to 2007, the number of broadband connections increased by more than 13 percent. Austrians use the Internet more intensively than virtually any other nation: 69 percent of all private households and 97 percent of companies have Internet access and want the fastest possible and mobile data transfer. While only 6 percent of the Swiss broadband connections and only 2 percent of German broadband connections are mobile, the percentage is as high as 28 percent in Austria.