TYPE OF ACCESS CONNECTION

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.

Fibre connections grew by 38.7% in the six months between June 2017 and December 2017. The number of fibre connections has more than doubled between December 2016 and December 2017, reaching nearly three million subscribers.

Broadband internet subscribers(a), by type of access connection
		Dec 2016	Jun 2017	Dec 2017
		'000	'000	'000
Broadband subscribers
	DSL	4 716	4 233	3 706
	Cable	1 048	1 010	924
	Fibre	1 431	2 144	2 973
	Satellite	76	np	120
	Fixed wireless	102	138	199
	Mobile wireless	6 087	6 107	6 286
	Other	1	np	0 (b)
All broadband subscribers		13 461	13 748	14 209
np not available for publication but included in the totals where applicable, unless otherwise indicated (a) Refer to the Glossary for definition of subscribers. (b) nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)

VOLUME OF DATA DOWNLOADED


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.

Volume of data downloaded by type of access connection(a)
		Dec 2016	Jun 2017	Dec 2017
		TB	TB	TB
Volume of data downloaded Broadband
	Fixed line(b)	2 532 367	2 913 245	3 478 568
	Wireless(c)	54 689	82 727	107 960
Total Broadband		2 587 056	2 995 972	3 586 528
(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 growth in the number of subscribers has remained stable while the growth in the volume of data downloaded has been increasing.




MOBILE HANDSET SUBSCRIBERS


As at 31 December 2017, there were approximately 26.7 million mobile handset subscribers in Australia. This is an increase of 1.4% since June 2017.

The volume of data downloaded via mobile handsets for the three months ended 31 December 2017 was 203,157 Terabytes. This was a 16.0% increase in data downloads via mobile handsets when compared with the three months ended 30 June 2017 and a 39.1% increase in downloads in the year ended 31 December 2017.

Internet connections via a mobile handset
		Dec 2016	Jun 2017	Dec 2017
Total mobile handset subscribers	'000	25 457	26 330	26 694
Volume of data downloaded via mobile handset(a)(b)	TB	146 050	175 076	203 157
(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.