DIAL-UP ON THE SLIDE, DSL PLATEAUS AND WIRELESS BOOMS
The number of dial-up subscribers continues to plummet, digital subscriber line (DSL) connections have peaked and more and more Australians are connecting to the internet via wireless broadband according to the latest report into Internet Activity released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on 30 March, 2010.
The annual survey of Internet Service Providers, with more than 1000 subscribers, revealed that there were 9.1 million active internet users as at 31 December 2009 and 90% of all internet connections are now non-dial up.
Fastest growing
Mobile wireless via a datacard, dongle or USB modem was the fastest growing technology in internet connections, increasing to 2.8 million in December 2009. This represents a 40% increase from June 2009.
DSL continued to be the major technology for connections, accounting for 51% of non-dial-up connections but its share of market has fallen by 6% on the same period.
The report also revealed that Australians continued to access higher download speeds, with 62% of access connections having a download speed of 1.5Mbps or greater.
A mere 511,000 subscribers used a broadband connection with speeds of 24Mbps or greater, with the majority of local subscribers, 3.19 million, experiencing download speeds of between 1.5 and 8 Mbps.
Usage trends
In line with the subscriber trends the amount of data downloaded over dial-up internet connections has dwindled to 325Terrabytes, over the three months prior to the survey, compared to a whopping 135, 674 Terabytes downloaded over a DSL, cable, fibre mobile wireless datacard, dongle or USB modem connection, over the same period
The report also indicated that the number of medium sized ISPs (1,001 – 10,000 subscribers) has decreased from 88 in December 2008 to 65 in December 2009, and the number of large ISPs (10,001 – 100,000 subscribers) has increased from 27 in December 2008, to 29 in December 2009.
ISP consolidation continues
And in the very large ISP category (100.001 + subscribers) there has also been further consolidation, from 126 in December 2008, to 104 in December 2009.
Business and Government subscribers have increased from 1.29 million in December 2008 to 1.65 in December 2009. Household subscribers have increased from 6.62 million in December 2008, to 7.45 million in December 2009.
Overall the number of internet subscribers in Australia has increased by almost two million in the past two years, from 7.95 million to 9.11 million respectively.
