The ABS has released its half-yearly Internet Activity report, which reported near exponential growth in data usage despite only a 3.4% six monthly increase in internet subscribers:
There were 14.2 million internet subscribers in Australia at the end of December 2017. This is an increase of 3.4% from the end of June 2017…
The total volume of data downloaded in the three months ended 31 December 2017 was 3.6 million Terabytes (or 3.6 Exabytes).
This is a 19.7% increase in data downloads when compared with the three months ended 30 June 2017 and a 38.6% increase in the year between December 2016 and December 2017.
Data downloaded via fixed line broadband (3.5 million Terabytes) accounted for 97.0% of all internet downloads in the three months ended 31 December 2017.
The below table shows the type of connection:
As you can see, DSL remains the dominant form of fixed-line service, although Fibre is catching up fast – most likely due to the roll-out of the NBN.
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
