The histogram

The histogram shows the time that UK residents spent on various phone calls between 1995 and 2002.

Local phone calls were the highest for the entire period, rising from 72 billion minutes in 1995 to 90 billion minutes in 1999. When they reached their highest peak, by 2002 they had fallen back to the same results as in 1995.

The number of calls to national and international landlines rose steadily from 39 billion to 60 billion at the end of the period under review.

The number of mobile calls increased sharply from 2 billion to 46 billion minutes. This growth was particularly noticeable between 1999 and 2002, when mobile phone usage increased.

In summary, although local fixed-line telephone calls continued to be most popular in 2002, the gap between these three categories has narrowed significantly since 2000.