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EXPLANATORY NOTES


INTRODUCTION

1 This release presents results from the Internet Activity Survey (IAS) conducted in respect of the three months ending 31 December 2008. This release contains results from all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who operated in Australia.


SCOPE AND COVERAGE

2 The December quarter 2008 IAS covers ISPs who operated in Australia at the end of the reference period. ISPs are defined as businesses that supply internet connectivity and access services to individuals, households, businesses, government and other organisations. Libraries, internet kiosks, internet cafes and hot-spots which provide internet access on a casual basis are excluded from the census.

3 The source of the IAS population frame is the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO), with which ISPs are required to register. Using this list as a basis, the ABS maintains it's own confidential list of ISPs. The TIO list may contain the following organisations that are out of scope of the IAS: those that are no longer operating as ISPs including wholesalers and web hosting only; those where there is common ownership and, as such, reporting is consolidated for these ISPs on the IAS; and other types of organisations that are required to register with the TIO (e.g. Telecommunications companies). Due to these differences in scope between the ISPs reporting on the IAS and the TIO list, proportions of ISPs will be released instead of counts of ISPs from December 2008.

4 The reference periods for this collection are December (a full census of all ISPs) and June (a reduced scope survey of all ISPs with more than 10,000 active subscribers), to align with international reporting of broadband statistics by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

5 Each December quarter, the IAS is conducted as a mail-out, mail-back census of all ISPs, with ISPs who have 1,000 or less active subscribers completing a subset of questions. Every June quarter a subset of the population, those ISPs with more than 10,000 active subscribers, are surveyed to obtain more frequent data on key patterns.

6 Connections to the internet via mobile telephones are excluded from the scope of this survey. However, mobile wireless subscriptions to the internet via a datacard or USB modem are included.


SUBSCRIBERS

7 Active subscribers are defined as subscribers having accounts with ISPs who have accessed the internet or paid for access to the internet during the three months ending 31 December 2008. Counts of subscribers are not the same as counts of people/organisations with internet access, because subscribers may have accounts with more than one ISP. Conversely, there are single ISP subscriber accounts that provide internet access (or email addresses) for multiple people/organisations, e.g. Universities.


STATISTICAL UNIT

8 The unit for which statistics are reported in the IAS is the legal entity providing internet access.

9 ISPs in the IAS have been classified by size according to the number of subscribers ISPs reported for at the end of the reference period. The size categories are defined as follows:

• errors in the reporting of data by respondents;
• errors in capturing or processing of data;
• estimation for missing or misreported data; and
• definition and classification errors.

Government Technology, Australia, cat. no. 8119.0
Information and Communication Technology, Australia, cat. no. 8126.0
Business Use of Information Technology, cat. no. 8129.0
Household Use of Information Technology, Australia, cat. no. 8146.0
Patterns of internet access in Australia, 2006, cat. no. 8146.0.55.001
Use of Information Technology on Farms, Australia, cat. no. 8150.0
Summary of IT Use and Innovation in Australian Businesses, cat. no. 8166.0
Selected Characteristics of Australian Business, cat. no. 8167.0