State of the Internet in Australia

The National Broadband Network (NBN) is Australia's national wholesale communications network whish id currently being built to bring high speed broadband and telephone services throughout Australia. Depending on where you live in the country the roll out may have already happened or unfortunately may take as long as another decade before it gets to your home, school or workplace.

Given the great expense of this major infrastructure project there has been considerable debate about the cost and method of delivering the project. With the change of Federal Government in 2013 from Labor to Liberal & National Coalition the NBN was placed under a strategic review in an effort to reduce the cost from $72 billion dollars.

As an outcome of this budgeting exercise the NBN Co's strategic review has decided to reduce costs of the broadband architecture by using a mixture of technologies, including fibre to the node (FttN) and use of existing hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) would be implemented rather than the original fibre to the home (FttH)  where the optical fibre is installed right to the premises.

So what does that mean in terms of internet speed?

The Australian Labor Party was offering between 25Mbps and up to 100Mbps download, and 1Mbps up to 40Mbps upload on FttH. The plan was to offer 1Gbps on fibre in the future. On fixed wireless 25Mbps download and 5Mbps upload.

Whereas the Coalition are now promising between 25Mbps and up to 100Mbps download by 2016, increasing to between 50Mbps and up to 100Mbps by 2019 with No minimum upload speeds given.

As of 2014 pre NBN, Australia is ranked 30th in the world with an average peak connection speed of 30.1 megabits per second (Mbps), according to Akamai's latest State of the Internet report. This is a 32 per cent increase from the same period a year ago, when the nation ranked 36th with an average peak speed of 22.8 Mbps.

The top 20 countries for fast internet:

1. Hong Kong, 65.4 Mbps
2. South Korea, 63.6 Mbps
3. Japan, 52 Mbps
4. Singapore, 50.1 Mbps
5. Israel, 47.7 Mbps
6. Romania, 45.4 Mbps
7. Latvia, 43.1 Mbps
8. Taiwan, 42.7 Mbps
9. Netherlands, 39.6 Mbps
10. Belgium, 38.5 Mbps
11. Switzerland, 38.4 Mbps
12. Bulgaria, 37 Mbps
13. United States, 37 Mbps
14. Kuwait, 36.4 Mbps
15. United Arab Emirates, 36 Mbps
16. Britain, 35.7 Mbps
17. Canada, 34.8 Mbps
18. Czech Republic, 34.8 Mbps
19. Macau, 34.4 Mbps
20. Sweden, 33.1 Mbps

 

Figures are average peak connection speeds in megabits per second. Source: Akamai

Internet connections in Australia

In the eight years to 2006-07, internet connections jumped fourfold - from 16% to 64% in Australian homes.

Very remote areas had lower levels of internet connection, with under half (42%) connected compared with two-thirds (66%) of homes in the major cities.

At the national level 66% of dwellings in major cities have access to the Internet, compared to 42% for very remote Australia. This gap is similar for Broadband access, the corresponding figures being 46% and 24%.

In respect of States and territories, considerable differences in access rates were recorded, both for any Internet and Broadband. The Australian Capital Territory has the highest proportion of occupied dwellings connected to the Internet (75%). New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia have similar levels of Internet connection, ranging between 63% and 65%. Likewise, South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory have similar levels of connectivity, ranging between 55% and 58%. Similar patterns were observed for Broadband connectivity as well. The Australian Capital Territory has the highest proportion of occupied dwellings having Broadband connectivity (53%). New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia have very similar levels of Broadband connectivity, ranging between 41% and 42%. South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory have similar levels of connectivity, ranging between 28% and 32%.

In comparison with people aged between 35 and 44 years, people under 24 years of age have more than 50% likelihood of Broadband access. Older people are less likely to have Broadband access, people in the age group of 65 to 74 being 42% less likely, and those 75 years or more 34% less likely.

Income

Rates of access continue to vary significantly with income. Based on equivalised household incomes, individuals living in households with equivalised income of $2000 or more per week are three times more likely to have Broadband access compared with persons with less than $600 per week income

Education Level

Educational attainment is another factor influencing any Internet access. For example, regression results indicate that, compared to people with no post school qualifications, people with post graduate degrees were 83% more likely to have Broadband access.

Family composition

Both unmarried males and females are less likely (by 25% and 37% respectively) to have Broadband access than married males and married females Families (both couple and single parent) with children under 15 and dependent students are most likely to be connected. Research indicates that such families have a three to four times higher likelihood of Broadband access in comparison with families without children or dependent students, signifying the importance families with students assign to Broadband connectivity.

Labour force status and occupation

Unemployed people are 12% less likely, and people not in the labour force are 18% less likely, to have access to Broadband in comparison with employed people in high skill occupations. People employed in low skill occupations are 27% less likely to have Broadband access.


Source ABS