More take up broadband: ACCC issues latest figures

More Australians across the country are taking up broadband services, but at a slowing rate, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's Snapshot of Broadband Deployment, an update of which was issued today.

"The report shows that as at the end of December 2002, there were 363,500 broadband services connected across Australia, an increase of 51,300 since September 2002*", ACCC Chairman, Professor Allan Fels, said. "While take-up of broadband services has increased, it appears that the rate of growth may be slowing".

In the April-June quarter of 2002 there was a 29.2 per cent increase in the take-up broadband services, but this dropped to 21 per cent in the July-September quarter and to 16.4 per cent in the October-December quarter.

"In terms of specific technologies, the biggest impact has been in the take-up of ADSL services", Professor Fels said. "In the April-June quarter growth in ADSL take-up was 51.4 per cent, but this declined to 24.1 per cent in the July-September quarter and 16 per cent in the October-December quarter".

Broadband services allow users to access information from on line networks at much faster speeds than ordinary dial-up services. This also enables access to more diverse and richer audio and video-based content. Broadband in Australia is predominantly provided using either Hybrid Fibre Coax (cable) or through Telstra's traditional copper network using digital subscriber line (DSL) technology. The most popular form of DSL technology is asymmetric digital subscriber lines (ADSL), which is particularly suited to Internet applications.

"The ACCC will continue to work on promoting competition in broadband markets", said Professor Fels. "For example, Telstra is currently implementing new ADSL transfer processes following an investigation by the ACCC".

ADSL transfer refers to the process of moving a customer from one ISP (internet service provider) to another, while continuing to use the same underlying ADSL network service. For instance, a customer wishing to switch from Telstra BigPond to Ozemail, will generally remain on the underlying Telstra ADSL network, but through the ADSL transfer process the customer will now have a retail relationship with Ozemail.

The ACCC recently received a number of complaints from Telstra's wholesale and retail ADSL customers expressing concern about the quality of Telstra's ADSL transfer processes, particularly delays and downtime to the ADSL service that occurred when the customer attempted to change ISPs.

"Complainants suggested that these delays, which varied from a few days to a number of weeks, were stifling the further development of ADSL competition, as consumers were deterred from moving between ADSL service providers for fear of experiencing these delays", said Professor Fels. "Ultimately, transfer delays mean that consumers are not taking advantage of the best ADSL deals".

The ACCC informed Telstra of its concerns regarding ADSL transfers. In response Telstra has conducted a number of trials with wholesale customers seeking a more streamlined and efficient transfer process. Under these more automated processes, the downtime for most ADSL service transfers should be reduced to a matter of minutes. The commercial launch of the automated transfer process is scheduled for late March 2003.

"The ACCC is encouraged by Telstra's recent initiatives aimed at addressing this problem and will be closely monitoring the implementation of the new ADSL transfer processes to ensure that it delivers a high quality service to Telstra’s retail customers", said Professor Fels.

Current and previous ACCC Broadband Snapshot reports will be available on the ACCC website.

Background

NB: * The figures provided in the ACCC's three previous Broadband Snapshot reports (January-March 2002, April-June 2002, July-September 2002) have been revised following revised data provided to the ACCC by industry. The revisions have been highlighted in the October-December 2002 report and should be compared against the previous report.