The Australian Bureau of Statistics released its latest Internet Activity report today, with the total number of internet subscribers passing the 12 million mark.
The number of mobile internet subscribers, a number that excludes mobile handset users, increased to 5.9 million, while DSL grew to 4.6 million total subscribers.
(Credit: ABS)
Although mobile internet connections make up almost 50 percent of all connections, over 92 percent of downloads are completed via fixed line broadband. Fixed line broadband data volume also grew faster than wireless, with the former seeing 53 percent growth, compared to 32 percent for wireless.
The total volume of data downloaded came in at 414,537TB, a 51 percent increase on last year’s figure. Dial-up volume accounted for a mere 106TB of data.
Looking at the breakdown by service speed, the number of connections with greater than 100mbps grew by an annual rate of 138 percent, to 43,000 subscribers. Year on year, all broadband categories saw in increase in subscriber numbers, with the number of subscribers on less than 256kbps falling from 579,000 to 436,000.
For mobile handsets, the number of handset subscribers reached 16.2 million, and the amount of data downloaded hit 6,610TB.
These numbers back up what NBN CEO Mike Quigley said back in May, that users were opting for faster plans, if it was offered.
Little wonder that we no longer hear Opposition Communications Spokesman Malcolm Turnbull out and about, speaking of how 12Mbps is enough for anyone.
In the two years since he made that statement, at least 1.5 million subscribers across the country have chosen connection speeds that are double what the former Opposition leader deemed to be enough.
It’ll be interesting to see how much that number grows again in six months time, when the next installation of the report is due.
