The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission has published its first Internet Activity Report, taking over a role the Australian Bureau of Statistics used to play.
The report covers the quarter ending December 2018 and reveals the total number of retail services in operation (SIOs) hit 39.9 million as at the end of the year.
This was made up of 15.6 million fixed-line/wired (DSL, cable and fibre) and wireless broadband (satellite, fixed wireless and mobile wireless) SIOs, along with 24.3 million mobile handset services in operation.
Breaking down the fixed line/wired and wireless SIOs number further:
- Fibre (FTTB, FTTC, FTTH, FTTN and FTTP): 3,532,000
- DSL: 2,445,000
- Cable: 1,260,000
- Mobile wireless: 7,970,000
- Fixed wireless: 316,000
- Satellite: 117,000
So, 8.4 million wireless broadband and 7.2 million fixed-line/wired broadband SIOs.
Data Downloads
Fixed line continues to claim the vast majority of data downloaded. The total volume of data downloaded in the quarter ending 31 December 2018 was a whopping 5.1 million terabytes with fixed line broadband accounting for 91 per cent of that figure. Mobile handsets accounted for 6 per cent and wireless broadband just 3 percent.
In the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) final report last year, which covered the quarter to the end of June, fixed line represented 96.8% of data downloaded. However, the ABS report accounted for mobile handset downloads separately.
Other reasons why the ACCC’s report is not directly comparable to those provided by the ABS are:
"There are a smaller number of data providers subject to the Internet Activity RKR than provided information to the ABS for the purposes of the IAS," states the ACC, and, "Some data providers advised the ACCC of recent changes to their own internal reporting systems which improved the accuracy of the data extracted and supplied for data items requested under the RKR."
IAS (discontinued - ABS) = Internet Activity Survey
RKR (ACCC) = Record Keeping Rule
Connection Speed
With regard to speed, the ACCC commented the most popular speed tier for fixed line and wireless broadband SIOs (not including mobile handsets) was less than 24 megabits per second. This accounted for 61 per cent of all fixed-line/wired and wireless broadband services in operation.
You can view the ACCC's full Internet Activity Report here.
