8153.0 - Internet Activity, Australia, Dec 2000  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 30/04/2001   
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  • Internet subscribers up, slight fall in service providers - ABS (Media Release)

MEDIA RELEASE

April 30, 2001
Embargoed 11:30am (AEST)
40/2001

Internet subscribers up, slight fall in service providers - ABS

There were 3.9 million Internet subscribers registered in Australia at the end of the December quarter 2000, up from 3.8 million in the previous quarter, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported in its second quarterly survey of Internet service providers, released today.

Of these subscribers, 512,000 were registered as business or government subscribers, an increase of 80,000 from the September quarter. There were 7,000 fewer household Internet accounts and a drop in free Internet accounts of 307,000.

Over the quarter, each subscriber downloaded an average of 268 megabytes of data with household subscribers averaging 171 megabytes each and business and government organisations downloading an average of 912 megabytes for the three months.

At the end of December 2000 there were 696 ISPs supplying Internet access services across Australia, down 3% from the previous quarter. The six largest ISPs (each having more than 100,000 subscribers) provided Internet access to 2 million or 53% of all Internet subscribers.

The number of points of presence (POPs) increased by 7% over the quarter while access lines available to subscribers fell by 1%. This was due to an increase in POPs belonging to smaller ISPs and the rationalisation of POPs and access lines by the larger ISPs.

At the end of December quarter 2000, ISPs hosted 97,165 business and government web sites of which 4,233 (4%) provided an environment for secure transactions. The number of web sites hosted was down from the September quarter. This was because some businesses which reported for the previous quarter have ceased being ISPs and now concentrate on hosting web sites.

ISPs were widely distributed across Australia with the highest concentration and greatest activity in capital cities. Australian capital cities accounted for 74% of Internet subscribers, and 79% of data downloaded during the December quarter 2000. Only 1% (44,000) of Internet subscribers accessed POPs located in very remote or remote regions of Australia.

Of the 3.9 million Internet subscribers, 10% were on a free Internet access plan, 66% were on a monthly/quarterly/annual access plan and 21% were on an hourly access plan.

Details, including information for States/Territories and smaller regions, are in Internet Activity Australia (cat. no. 8153.0), available from ABS Bookshops. The main features of the publication are available on this site.