The bar chart illustrates the total number of minutes (in billions) spent on three types of phone calls in Australia between 1998 and 2005. The call types include local landline, national and international landline, and mobile calls.
Overall, local calls remained the most common type throughout the period, peaking in the early 2000s before declining. In contrast, both national and international calls, as well as mobile calls, showed a steady increase over the entire timeframe.
In 1998, Australians spent about 60 billion minutes on local calls, which rose consistently and reached a peak of around 72 billion minutes in 2001. After that, the figure began to decline gradually, returning to its initial level by 2005.
National and international landline calls started at approximately 38 billion minutes in 1998 and experienced a steady rise year by year, reaching about 55 billion minutes in 2005. Mobile calls, while the least used in 1998 at just 2 billion minutes, saw the most dramatic growth, increasing more than tenfold to around 32 billion minutes by 2005.
In summary, while local calls were initially dominant, mobile calls showed the most significant growth, and national and international calls also increased steadily over the eight-year period.