TYPE OF ACCESS CONNECTION

There were 13.7 million internet subscribers in Australia at the end of June 2017. This is an increase of 2.1% from the end of December 2016. Fibre connections grew by 49.8% in the six months between December 2016 and June 2017. There were 2.1 million fibre connections in June 2017, an increase of 123.3% for the year between June 2016 and June 2017.

Internet subscribers by type of access connection(a), for ISPs with more than 1,000 subscribers
		Jun 2016	Dec 2016	Jun 2017
		'000	'000	'000
Dial-up subscribers		90	na	na
Broadband subscribers
	DSL	5 032	4 716	4 233
	Cable	1 029	1 048	1 010
	Fibre	960	1 431	2 144
	Satellite	62	76	np
	Fixed wireless	83	102	138
	Mobile wireless	6 039	6 087	6 107
	Other	1	1	np
All broadband subscribers		13 207	13 461	13 748
(a) Figures reported by type of access connection may not equal figures collected by advertised download speeds. This is due to some broadband connections being reported as less than 256kbps and some dial-up connections being reported as higher than 256kbps. As of December 2016, dial-up is no longer an applicable response category for type of access connection. np not available for publication but included in the totals where applicable, unless otherwise indicated na not applicable

ADVERTISED DOWNLOAD SPEED

Internet subscribers by advertised download speed
		Dec 2016	Jun 2017
		'000	'000
Broadband
	Less than 1.5Mbps	92	np
	1.5Mbps to less than 8Mbps	2 158	np
	8Mbps to less than 24Mbps	3 368	3 552
	24Mbps to less than 100Mbps	7 557	8 073
	100Mbps or greater	286	391
Total broadband subscribers		13 461	13 748

np not available for publication but included in totals where applicable, unless otherwise indicated.


NUMBER OF INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS (ISPs)


As at 30 June 2017, there were 63 ISPs with more than 1,000 subscribers in Australia contributing to these statistics.

Number of ISPs with more than 1,000 subscribers
		Jun 2016	Dec 2016	Jun 2017
		no.	no.	no.
ISP size
	Medium ISPs (1,001 - 10,000 subscribers)	33	34	32
	Large ISPs (10,001 - 100,000 subscribers)	23	19	22
	Very large ISPs (100,001 or greater subscribers)	10	10	9
Total number of ISPs		66	63	63

VOLUME OF DATA DOWNLOADED


The total volume of data downloaded in the three months ended 30 June 2017 was 3.0 million Terabytes (or 3.0 Exabytes).

This is a 15.8% increase in data downloads when compared with the three months ended 31 December 2016 and a 42.8% increase in the year between June 2016 and June 2017.

Data downloaded via fixed line broadband (2.9 million Terabytes) accounted for 97.2% of all internet downloads in the three months ended 30 June 2017.

Volume of data downloaded by type of access connection(a)
		Jun 2016	Dec 2016	Jun 2017
		TB	TB	TB
Volume of data downloaded Broadband
	Fixed line(b)	2 049 553	2 532 367	2 913 245
	Wireless(c)	48 100	54 689	82 727
Total Broadband		2 097 654	2 587 056	2 995 972
(a) The volume of data downloaded is reported for the three month period prior to the reference date.
(b) Fixed line includes DSL, cable, fibre and other fixed line broadband.
(c) Wireless includes satellite, fixed wireless, mobile wireless via a datacard, dongle, USB modem or tablet SIM card and other wireless broadband. Excludes data downloaded via mobile handsets which is reported in the mobile handset section.

The following graph shows the number of internet subscribers and the volume of data downloaded for the reporting periods between June 2010 and June 2017.





MOBILE HANDSET SUBSCRIBERS


Mobile handset subscriber numbers

As at 30 June 2017, there were approximately 26.3 million mobile handset subscribers in Australia. This is an increase of 3.4% since December 2016.

Internet connections via a mobile handset, for ISPs with more than 1,000 subscribers
		Jun 2016	Dec 2016	Jun 2017
Total mobile handset subscribers	'000	24 818	25 457	26 330
Volume of data downloaded via mobile handset(a)(b)	TB	121 147	146 050	175 076
(a) The volume of data downloaded is reported for the three month period prior to the reference date. (b) The volume of data downloaded by mobile handsets may only include revenue generating downloads, and not monthly data allowances, or downloads that don't contribute to data download allowances.

Mobile handset subscriber downloads

The volume of data downloaded via mobile handsets for the three months ended 30 June 2017 was 175,076 Terabytes. This was a 19.9% increase in data downloads via mobile handsets for the three months ended 30 June 2017 and a 44.5% increase in downloads in the year ended 30 June 2017.

For the 26.3 million mobile handset subscribers, this equates to 2.2 GB of data downloaded per subscriber per month.