The take up of broadband services has passed the 1.8 million mark, according to the latest Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Snapshot of Broadband Deployment issued today.
"The report shows that as at the end of March 2005, there were 1,839,700 broadband services connected across Australia", an ACCC Commissioner, Mr Ed Willett said.
"This represents an increase of over 1 million customers, or 122 per cent, over the preceding 12-month period".
This growth confirms that broadband is an important market in its own right. However, broadband services are also crucial to competition in other telecommunications markets, as consumers getting a new broadband connection are also more likely to switch providers of telephone services.
"ADSL remains the primary area of growth with near to a quarter of a million new services connected in the March quarter".
Notably, Telstra is the main supplier of ADSL services, and most competing carriers use Telstra's infrastructure to supply broadband services. Retail broadband competition therefore remains contingent on a service provider's ability to gain reasonable access to Telstra's copper wire network.
Current and previous ACCC Broadband Snapshot reports will be available on the ACCC website.
Media inquiries
Mr Michael Cosgrave, Group General Manager, Communications Group, (03) 9290 1914or 0416 043 160
Ms Lin Enright, Media, (02) 6243 1108or 0414 613 520
The report details the deployment of broadband services throughout Australia as at 31 March 2005 and is based on data provided by major carriers of broadband services. The report includes aggregated data in relation to the availability of broadband services and gives estimated numbers of services in operation in respect of cable, satellite, ADSL, other DSL and miscellaneous offerings.
Main findings:
As at 31 March 2005 total broadband take-up was 1,839,700.
Broadband take-up has increased by 1,010,400 or 122 per cent, from the March 2004 figure of 829,300.
The take-up of ADSL services is now at 1,298,100.
Total quarterly growth in broadband was at 18.8 per cent for the March 2005 quarter:
This is broadly in line with the December 2004 figure (18.2 per cent).
