According to a broad study released by the European Union today, Europeans are hanging up on landlines in favor of mobile phones and VoIP.

The EU spoke with over 26,000 people across 27 countries in the EU during November and December last year to find that 24 percent of European households have canceled their landline phone service in favor of mobile phones. According to the study, 22 percent of European households are using PC software like Skype for making calls over the Internet, with citizens in Latvia (58 percent), Lithuania (51), the Czech Republic (50), Poland (49), and Bulgaria (46) leading the pack.

This VoIP trend notably coincides with an increase in Internet access across the EU, with 49 percent of households now having access. 36 percent of those are on some kind of broadband (up from 28 percent the year before). Unfortunately, with the rise of faster access, Symantec says Europe has recently claimed the "king of spam" crown as well.

The most frequently-cited reason for not having Internet service (50 percent of these respondents), however, isn't lack of access but a sheer lack of interest in the service.

The EU's increase in mobile phone and VoIP dependency parallels trends we've seen recently in the US, where 15.8 percent of Americans are rolling only with mobile phones, and 13.8 percent are using VoIP.

Europeans also share similar gripes with Americans over the quality of their mobile phone and Internet services. One in four mobile phone users are not always able to connect to make a call, while 28 percent say they are "sometimes" cut off. 22 percent say they have difficulty contacting their Internet service provider about connection problems, and a similar number said the cost of support they get is not affordable.