Edinburgh residents ‘among chattiest in UK’

Edinburgh residents are among the chattiest in the UK, spending an average of four minutes talking on their mobiles on an average call.
A quarter of people make less than five mobile calls a month, the Ofcom report revealed.A quarter of people make less than five mobile calls a month, the Ofcom report revealed.
A quarter of people make less than five mobile calls a month, the Ofcom report revealed.

The Mobile Matters report from Ofcom, which looks at how people use their mobiles, found that a quarter of people made less than five mobile calls a month, with six per cent of people not making any standard mobile calls at all. Of those who did pick up the phone, almost two-thirds ended the call in less than 90 seconds.

The study also advises people to improve their signal at home by using WiFi calling.

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Liverpudlians were found to be the longest conversationalists on mobile phones, spending almost seven minutes on the average call – more than 40 per cent longer than Londoners, who came second. Edinburgh residents made the fifth longest calls at four minutes and four seconds - just a few seconds behind Leeds and Birmingham which were in third and fourth place respectively.

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Rob Baillie, mobile communications expert at Comparemymobile.com, said: “As the amount of time people spend on the phone decreases, the requirement to access the internet whilst on the move to reach people increases because consumers are more frequently opting to connect with others through methods like WhatsApp, or Messenger. Despite all the developments to mobile and internet connectivity, there are still areas in the UK where people are unable to access the network on their phone, and others unable to get a workable Wifi connection.”

Wi-fi vs 4G

The research shows that mobile users spend most of their time online connected to Wi-Fi, rather than using 3G or 4G. This helps explain why more than half of people use less than 1 gigabit of mobile data a month, and only one in 10 use 5GB or more.

When people are using their mobile data, they are mainly connected to 4G - for 82 per cent of the time. When they are in an area where a 4G network is available, they are generally able to get online whenever they attempt to.

Mobile data use peaks between 5pm and 6 pm, as rush-hour commuters look to catch-up with the latest news and scroll social media using their phone network.

The study said that while 92 per cent of people can get signal from all four of the major mobile operators at home, others cannot - and suggested installing indoor boosters, or making calls via wifi.

Mr Baillie added: “Ofcom’s suggestions of Wifi calling or indoor boosters seem to be masking a bigger problem – which is a lack of connectivity in the UK. The introduction of 5G will just further alienate those in more rural areas, some of whom will still be running on 3G (if they’re lucky), whilst those in well-built-up areas are on the fastest possible network.”

Ian Macrae, director of market intelligence at Ofcom, said: “People use their mobile in different ways around the country. But whether it’s for going online or having longer chats, a good signal has never been more important.

“So people can take several practical steps to boost their reception and stay connected.”

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