statistics

This page offers selected statistics about connectivity and the telecommunications industry in Australia and New Zealand.

It covers -

• introduction
• the industry
• devices
• subscribers
• traffic
• points of reference
• graphs

     introduction

The history of telecommunications in Australia over the past thirty years is one of normalisation, with successive new media and applications (mobile phones, email, SMS, broadband access) being adopted by most households and businesses.

By late 2008 over 52% of Australian households were estimated as having broaddband. 75% had a personal computer.

     the industry

As of 2000/1 the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) considered that there were around 814 businesses in the telecommunications sector within Australia, with overall employment of around 77,275 people.

The ABS estimated the overall income of those enterprises at $31,505 million, with $26,661 million expenses and operating profit before tax of $4,954 million. Total assets were around $55,898 million.

As points of reference Cisco's market capitalisation reached US$555 billion (almost half the annual GDP of France) in March 1999 and AOL-Time Warner announced losses of US$54.2 billion for the first quarter of 2002.

By late 2008 ACMA estimated that there 369 voice telephony service providers were operating in Australia, with 166 companies offering services over the public switched telecommunications network (PSTN), 242 companies offering voice over internet protocol (VoIP) services, and 74 companies providing both PSTN and VoIP services. 204 companies - most very small - provided wireless internet services (often to a handful of customers), with over half providing services to regional areas. There were around 41 satellite broadband service providers, most being regional ISPs that resell satellite broadband to regional, rural and remote customers.

ACMA estimated that there were approximately 11.26 million fixed voice (standard telephone) services at mid 2006, down from 11.46 million in the previous year.

There were four mobile carriers operating seven mobile phone networks, with Australia's remaining CDMA network (operated by Telstra) expected to be shut down in 2008.

     devices

In 2001 Australia had around 21.29 million fixed-line phones (ie 1.09 handsets per capita) and 11.17 million mobile phones (0.57 per capita). By December 2002 that had increased to 12.5 million mobile phone subscriptions (up from 6 million in 1999).

An estimated 83% of all Australian households at that time were within five kilometres of an exchange.

New Zealand had 4.11 million fixed phones (1.07 per capita) and 2.28 million mobiles.

As of mid-2006 there were a reported 58,000 payphones in Australia, with expectations that the number would decline by around 10% over the following two years.

     subscribers

At the end of September 2003 the ABS estimates that the number of internet subscribers in Australia was over 5.2 million (an increase of 135,000 from the end of March 2003 following increases of 11% for the six months ended March 2003 and 8% for the six months ended September 2002).

Dial-up subscriber numbers in Australia fell by 85,000 in the six months to September 2003, falling below 90% for the first time. The number of non dial-up subscribers grew from 470,000 at the end of the March 2003 to 690,000 at the end of September 2003. Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) subscriber numbers rose from 209,000 in the March quarter 2003 to 372,000 in the September quarter of that year.

There were 667 ISPs at that time: as noted earlier in this profile many of those bodies were very small and of uncertain viability. The ABS July 2005 Internet Activity Survey (IAS) featured results from all ISPs identified by the ABS as operating in Australia as at 31 March 2005. Continuing volatility among ISPs - the ABS recognised 689 ISPs supplying internet connectivity to 5.98 million active subscribers - saw a 5% increase in the number of 'Very Small' ISPs, those ISPs with fewer than 101 subscribers. The category accounted for only 0.1% of total subscribers (and 0.4% of total data downloaded).

Many of those entities are 'virtual' ISPs, using infrastructure and services provided by the dominant players, whose market share continues to increase. Ongoing consolidation and departures saw further decreases in the number of 'Small' (up to 1,000 subscribers) and 'Large' (up to 100,000 subscribers) ISPs. There were 10 ISPs with over 100,000 subscribers at the end of the 2005 March quarter.

In New Zealand there were around 1.24 million subscribers at the end of March 2005, according to Statistics New Zealand. They were serviced by 66 ISPs. Residential subscribers accounted for 80% of that figure and provided 63% of the revenue. Business and government users were 20% of the total number of subscribers, providing 37% of the revenue.

There were 30 ISP subscribers per 100 inhabitants in New Zealand, compaed with Australia's 29 subscribers per 100 inhabitants. New Zealand had 11 non-analogue active subscribers per 100 inhabitants (Australia had nine).

     broadband

In July 2004 the number of broadband connections in Australia supposedly reached 1 million, with Telstra claiming 750,000 broadband connections (including those who connect to other ISPs using its ADSL network) and Optus claiming 247,000 on its cable network and via phone lines.

At that time the ABS reported that

• the number of non dial-up subscribers grew from 690,000 at the end of the September quarter 2003 to 861,000 at the end of the March quarter 2004, reflecting a continuing move to broadband technologies.
• Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) subscriber numbers grew from 372,000 to 512,000 during the same period.
• data downloaded by subscribers during the March quarter 2004 increased by 37% from 4,665 million MBs to 6,409 million MBs - non dial-up subscribers increased their usage by 53% and accounted for over 75% of the total data downloaded whilst dial-up subscribers increased their downloads by just 5%.

The ABS July 2005 Internet Activity Survey (IAS) featured results from all ISPs identified by the ABS as operating in Australia as at 31 March 2005.

It suggested that the total number of internet subscribers at that time was 5.98 million, an increase of 239,000 (4%) from the end of September 2004. The increase in overall subscriber numbers was attributable to growth in "non dial-up" - primarily broadband - subscribers, up 39% from 1.3 million in September 2004 to 1.8 million at the end of March 2005.

Non dial-up subscribers represented 30% of total internet subscribers in Australia at the end of March 2005. Most of the growth for non dial-up was in the household subscriber sector, with a 42% increase in household broadband subscribers since the end of September 2004 (to around 1.4 million). The overall number of dial-up subscribers continued to decline, down to 4.2 million.

Around 550 ISPs provided connectivity using Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology. Data downloading by subscribers during the quarter continued to increase, up 28% to 14,124 million MBs. Broadband subscribers accounted for almost 87% of the total data downloaded.

The September 2005 Snapshot of Broadband Deployment report from the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) claimed that the number of broadband services in Australia was close to 2.2 million, an increase of over 1 million customers over the preceding year. ADSL accounted for 1.5 million broadband connections in the June 2005 quarter.

As of March 2005 analogue was the predominant connection mechanism in New Zealand, accounting for with 800,000 subscribers (65%). DSL was the most common mechanism within the 440,000 non-analogue subscribers.

800,000 subscribers had a download speed of less than 64 kbps. Among the non-analogue subscribers a download speed of 64kbps to 128kbps was the most common.

In late 2008 the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated that there were 4.3 million households with a broadband connection, up 22% from the previous year. The figure represents 52% of all households in Australia and 78% of households with internet access. ACMA offered somewhat different figures, reporting that there were 6.6 million internet subscribers in Australia: 3.9 million using broadband and 2.7 million using dial-up.

In late 2008 the ABS Household Use of Information Technology 2007-2008 reported that 72% of people aged 15 years or over accessed the internet from any location in the 12 months prior to July 2008. Home was the most popular location of access, with 64% of those people accessing the net from home and 33% from the workplace as the next most common location for accessing the Internet. Of those persons, "the average time spent using the internet was just over one hour per day (excluding internet use during working hours)".

     points of reference

Overseas statistics as points of reference are highlighted here.

     graphs

A range of graphs about telecommunications in Australia and New Zealand are here (PDF). For devices see the graphs here (PDF).







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