October 29, 2009 in Articles, Australian Statistics by admin

8 million plus internet subscribers in Australia

In its latest Internet Activity Survey (IAS), the Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported that at the end of June 2009, there were 8.4 million active internet subscribers in Australia.

Other highlights of the report include:

• Digital subscriber line (DSL) continued to be the major technology for non dial-up connections, accounting for 57% (4.2 million) of these connections. However, this percentage share has decreased since December 2008 when DSL represented 63% of non dial-up access connections.
• Mobile wireless subscribers had the next highest share, increasing significantly from 20% of all non dial-up connections (1.3 million) in December 2008 to 27% (2 million) in June 2009. This represents an increase of 51% over the six month period.
• Northern Territory subscriber numbers continued with an upward trend increasing by 20% since December 2008 to 83,000.
• The general trend towards higher download speeds continued, with 57% of subscribers now using a download speed of 1.5Mbps or greater, compared with 51% in December 2008.

The IAS was collected from data provided by Internet Service Providers based in Australia. The ABS explained that the scope for the June cycle of IAS has been expanded to contain results for all ISPs operating in Australia with more than 1,000 active subscribers at the end of the reporting period (i.e. as at 30 June 2009).

A complete report of the IAS is available for download here.