The pandemic has given a boost to technological development and digitization in the Czech Republic, as in the rest of the world. Understanding how people’s habits are changing with respect to telecommunications services is essential for following the evolution of the world economy. Credit: Freepik.
Czech Rep, Nov 2 (BD) – Information and communication technologies are a nerve center of the modern economy, which is why the Czech Statistical Office (CZSO) is interested in monitoring changes in usage patterns. The pandemic inevitably led to an evolution in habits; in 2020 more calls were made than in the previous year and the use of internet services from mobile networks also increased.
In the Czech Republic, the number of people using tariff services on mobile networks (such as voice services and mobile internet) is on the rise. The increase is not only linked to the pandemic; from 2015 to 2020 there was an increase of 1.5 million SIM cards in operation.
According to CZSO, most of the calls made during 2020 were made within the country. This figure is linked to the pandemic: “There was a slight decrease in the number of minutes used for international calls, by 0.2 billion minutes. This decrease is probably attributable to the limited travel abroad during 2020 in connection with the covid pandemic,” said Martin Pokorný of the CZSO Department on Research, Development and the Information Society.
The use of the internet has also changed in the last ten years. The number of fixed internet connections has halved, and in the monitored period the data show a preference for mobile internet connections.
“However, the biggest boom of the last ten years occurred in the optical network, when the number of connections increased from half a million to 721,000,” said Eva Myšková Skarlandtová, Head of the CZSO’s Research and Development Department.
Finally, the number of subscribers using mobile internet for telephones provided as part of their package is showing long-term growth, from 3.1 million in the Czech Republic in 2010, to nearly 10 million in 2020.
