Information Society indicators in the Member States of the EU
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2. Telephone lines 

2.2 Telephone lines : Breakdown per country

2.2.3 ISDN channels

The growth of ISDN is very recent, directly influenced by the Internet. ISDN is widespread within companies in most EU countries. Increasing numbers of households are also using ISDN as it offers the possibility of using the Internet and keeping the telephone line free. For a few years, a number of historic operators extensively promoted their ISDN services.

All EU countries saw very strong growth in the number of ISDN channels between 1997 and 1999 :

• Greece, Italy, Spain and Ireland experienced very significant rates: Greece : +232% (ISDN penetration was just emerging), Italy +114%, Spain +103% and Ireland +100%
• 7 countries saw average annual growth rates of between 96 % and 45%
• 3 countries saw average annual growth rates of between 35 % and 31%

Graph 12: ISDN channels penetration rate in the EU End 1997-1999

If we focus on 1999, we can distinguish 3 categories of countries :

• Less equipped countries, Greece, Spain, Belgium, Ireland, Portugal : 1 to 5 channels per 100 inh.
• Intermediary countries, France, Italy, Sweden and Austria : 6 to 9 channels per 100 inh.
• Most equipped countries : Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, Germany and Luxembourg : 12 to 20 channels per 100 inh. ISDN channels represent 38 and 39% of conventional lines in Germany and Luxembourg.

Graph 13: Number of ISDN channels per 100 inh. in the EU – End 1999

In the future, the development of high speed access solutions such as ADSL and high mobile penetration should lower the growth of ISDN.

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All data have been collected from readily available public sources of information (annual reports and publications by regulatory bodies, professional associations, operators, etc.). This is not a scientific document, but rather seeks to identify the key trends. To this end, where necessary, estimations have been made.

Additional data and information sources are available in the country reports that can be found on the ESIS Knowledge Base (http://www.ispo.cec.be/esis).

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