AMSTERDAM: The number of fixed telephony connections in the Netherlands dropped by 0.2 percent during the third quarter of 2016 to 6.28 million lines. Digital telephony lines grew by 0.3 percent during the quarter, which was not enough to offset the decrease in traditional telephony lines over PSTN/ISDN. At the same time, fixed telephony revenues fell even faster, according to Telecompaper’s Dutch Fixed Telephony 2016-Q3 report.
The number of digital phone lines grew to more than 5.6 million at the end of September 2016. The quarterly growth was driven by fibre VoIP, up 2.8 percent to end the quarter with almost 900,000 lines. DSL VoIP grew by 0.1 percent to 2.08 million lines, while cable VoIP decreased by 0.3 percent to 2.65 million lines.
For the coming years, Telecompaper expects a similar pattern, with the number of fixed lines decreasing slowly as growth in DSL and fibre VoIP is unable to compensate the decrease in traditional lines and smaller decrease in cable VoIP lines. The revenues will also continue to fall as KPN offers DSL/fibre VoIP free with broadband compared with EUR 12-21 for traditional telephony.
