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Tue 09 OCT

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Twice as many Australians now on superfast broadband

Posted on Tuesday 09 October 2012 by Gary McLaren

New figures confirm Australia's demand for superfast broadband and the need for better fixed-line telecommunications infrastructure is growing.

The nation's appetite for 100 mbps broadband services has more than doubled over the past year according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics' (ABS) latest Internet Activity Australia Report.

In fact, across the country, there are now more than 1.5 million subscribers to broadband services faster than the maximum ADSL2+ speed of 24 mbps.

Of course, many of these people are using cable broadband services, but while cable is limited to select metropolitan suburbs, the NBN aims to provide superfast speeds to the vast majority of the country.

Today's figures demonstrate that Australians want the NBN and why connecting fibre directly to homes and businesses is the right choice.

More people are downloading more and more data over fixed-line networks - you only have to look at the amount of videos, high resolution images, music, large documents and games people are downloading at home and in the office (including over Wi-Fi networks).

To focus on just one category of content, high definition video, Cisco forecasts Australian consumption of it will grow more than ten times by 2020. Clearly, upgrading our fixed line broadband will be vital to keeping up with this ever-growing demand.

The stats show that whether people are browsing on a tablet or watching YouTube on their smartphone, 92% of their downloads are via fixed line connections, even if they're using Wi-Fi. Only a comparitively tiny eight percent of downloads are done over wireless broadband or mobile handsets.

Growth in the usage of fixed line broadband continues to outpace mobile networks, too. Downloads over fixed line broadband grew 53% between 2011 and 2012, while downloads over wireless networks only grew 40%.

Meanwhile, according to last week's OECD Internet Economy Outlook 2012, twenty four other countries have more fibre connected to buildings than Australia -- including smaller nations like Estonia and Turkey and large geographies with similarities to Australia like Canada and the USA.

The rollout of the NBN is well underway. Construction is forecast to have commenced or be complete for 3.5 million premises by mid-2015, in line with the three year rollout plan.

View more about:
Fibre

By Gary McLaren, Chief Technology Officer, NBN Co

Gary is responsible for defining the technology requirements of the National Broadband Network. He has 25 years experience in the telecommunications industry, including senior engineering roles at Telstra and Siemens.

Legal stuff you need to know:

When we talk about speeds delivered over the National Broadband Network, we are referring to the wholesale speed to telephone and internet service providers. The speed you can achieve, and services you can use, on your individual connection will depend on many factors including the services you subscribe to, the software and communication protocols you use, quality of your equipment and connection to your home/business, the broadband plans offered by your telephone or internet provider and how it designs its network to cater for multiple users.

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