Ireland’s eir has published its annual ‘Year in Data’ report for 2023, which it has claimed provides ‘a unique glimpse into the nation’s evolving digital habits and signals significant shifts in how the Irish public have embraced digital connectivity’.
With regards to the fixed broadband sector, eir said that it had a recorded a 9.7% year-on-year increase in total data usage in 2023, with 4,450PB carried over its network, up from 4,056PB in 2022. Of particular note, eir highlighted that fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) data increased by 49% in 2023, to reach 1,978PB, from 1,333PB in the previous year. Meanwhile, according to eir, each household on average used 4,627GB of broadband data in 2023, while households with fibre broadband used on average 5,903GB over the twelve-month period.
In the mobile sector, eir said that key trends included a record 17 million minutes of mobile voice calls being recorded on 22 December, with Christmas Day reportedly the busiest day in 2023 for mobile data usage. Further, eir claimed that it 5G network saw an ‘impressive’ 130% increase in traffic compared to 2022, though it stopped short of confirming exactly how much data the network had carried.
Commenting on the report, eir CEO Olive Loomes said: ‘We’re proud as a business to continuously support this increased connectivity through substantial investment in telecommunications infrastructure over the past five years. The significant 49% increase in Gigabit Fibre usage underscores a growing reliance on high-speed internet in our daily lives. Furthermore, the impressive 130% increase in data usage across eir’s 5G network shows the essential role that ultra-fast connectivity now plays in our everyday activities.’