Only 13 per cent of households have a mobile only – and not a landline – which is below the EU average of 18 per cent, according to Eurostat figures.

Rupert Wood from telecommunications analysts Analysys said that very high mobile-only households were found in poorer countries and gave the example of Finland, where about 40 per cent of homes did not have a landline.

“Looking at the actual demographics – what segments of the population don’t have a fixed line – clearly there’s a high proportion who are young and mobile, in the sense that they move house fairly frequently,” he said.

Income seemed to be a definite barrier to having a landline, he added.

He went on to suggest that he thought that younger people who were on the move and restricted by income would eventually get a landline because there was no good mobile alternative to broadband.

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