The results of the Consumer Research that was conducted by the Hellenic Telecommunications & Post Commission on matters concerning electronic communication have been posted on its web site (www.eett.gr, main page).

The research was conducted by a research company on behalf of the Hellenic Telecommunications & Post Commission during the first fifteen days of July 2005. The purpose of this research was to gather information on consumer habits and behaviour toward telecommunications services and the extent of their knowledge and the extent to which they are informed on matters concerning available services, new technologies, etc. The research primarily focused on fixed and mobile telephony and internet access.

The research was conducted through personal interviews and with the use of a structured questionnaire involving 1,801 households throughout Greece and an equal number of persons aged 18 and over. The sampling method that was applied secured the sample’s fortuity and representativeness of the basic demographic information of Greece’s actual population (based on the census of the National Statistics Service of Greece of 2001), and specifically age, gender, region where the household is located and the level of urbanisation of the household’s region.

The research’s main results are the following:

With regard to fixed telephony:

• 87% of all Greek households, which corresponds to approximately 3,220,000 households, use fixed telephony (page 15).
• 82.3% of all Greek households exclusively use the Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation, while 17.7% also or only use alternative providers (page 16).
• Low call charges (87.5%) and quality of conversation (31.5%) constitute the most significant criteria based on which households select a fixed telephony provider (page 19).
• Approximately 1 out of 2 Greek households spends 25 to 50 Euros per month for its mobile telephone (page 22).

With regard to mobile telephony:

• Approximately 70% of all Greek households use mobile telephony, which corresponds to approximately 6,200,000 owners of active mobile telephones. An active mobile telephone is a telephone that has been used in the past three months (page 33).
• With regard to the type of connection, the percentages that correspond to connections that are provided on the basis of a contract and connections through cards are approximately equal (page 35), the former of which have a slightly higher percentage.
• Low call charges (85%), network connection (50%) and low SMS charges (36%) constitute the three most significant criteria based on which households select a mobile telephone company (page 41).
• With regard to the frequency at which mobile telephony services are used (page 45):
• • Voice calls (74% frequently receive calls, 68% frequently make calls) constitute the main use of mobile telephones, which is followed by SMS (33% frequently receive SMS, 32% frequently send SMS) and MMS (4% frequently receive/send MMS).
  • Internet access (1% frequently access the internet) and communication via e-mail (1% receive or send e-mails) via mobile telephone are very seldom used.
• The use of mobile telephones (page 47) differs among households depending on the type of call. The majority of households frequently use mobile telephones for calls to other mobile telephones (40%) while they use fixed telephones for calls to fixed telephones (35%).

With regard to the internet:

• Approximately 16% of all Greek households use the internet (page 61).
• With regard to the type of connection (page 62), approximately 86% of all Greek households use dial-up connections (PSTN, ISDN).
• Average weekly use by all members of a household amounts to 1-2 hours for 25.5% of internet users (page 63).
• With regard to broadband connection (page 74), even households that access the internet through dial-up connection are not interested in or do not believe that they need (43%) this type of connection and are not relatively informed thereof (25%).

According to a statement of the President of the Hellenic Telecommunications & Post Commission, Professor Nikitas Alexandridis, “The Hellenic Telecommunications & Post Commission intends to use the results of this research in order to both analyse the level of competition in the individual markets of electronic communication and to effectively regulate the broader market of electronic communications in Greece.”