Number of VoIP users in France doubles

A quarter of all fixed-line telephone calls made in France last year were internet-based, it has been revealed.

According to the country's telecoms provider Arcep, by the end of the year, the number of people turning to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services nearly doubled.

Arcep said that the amount of French residents who had subscribed to access to high-speed broadband was also on the up and they now made up 83 per cent of all internet users in France.

It seems that the French are also tuning in their droves to the wonders of internet television, with the figures showing that 2.6 million now had access to TV shows online - nearly double that of 2005.

The regulatory body said: "This comes mainly from the fast growth of subscriptions to telephone services based on Internet Protocol, the number of which has doubled since the end of 2005."

A separate survey carried out by Motorola, however, found that the rest of Europe was not too far behind, with 45 per cent of the continent's broadband subscribers expecting to take advantage of other broadband services, such as video calling, by 2012.