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INTRODUCTION

• The Internet Activity Survey (IAS) is a census which collects details on aspects of Internet access services provided by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Australia. This publication contains results for all ISPs operating in Australia as at 30 September 2006.
• This was the first full collection since the March quarter 2005 publication and direct comparisons between cycles should be used cautiously. See the Explanatory Notes 2 - 5 for the scope and coverage of the collection.
• This is an electronic release of Internet Activity in Australia. There is no accompanying publication or pdf released.

• At the end of the September quarter 2006, there were over 6.65 million active Internet subscribers in Australia, comprised of 826,000 business and government subscribers and over 5.83 million household subscribers.
• The number of non dial-up subscribers was over 3.91 million, compared with dial-up subscribers of 2.75 million recorded at the end of September 2006.
• Non dial-up subscribers increased from almost 1.80 million at the end of March 2005 to 3.91 million at the end of September 2006. Non dial-up subscribers represented 59% of total Internet subscribers in Australia at the end of September 2006 compared with 30% at the end of March 2005.
• Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) continued to be the dominant access technology used for non dial-up subscribers with 2.99 million or almost 77% of total non dial-up subscribers being connected using this means. Wireless technology (mobile and fixed) is showing growth with 186,000 or 4.8% of the non dial-up access.
• Connections with download speeds of 1.5 Mbps or greater increased to 1.13 million or 17% of subscribers in September 2006 compared to 599,000 or 10% of subscribers at the end of March 2005.
• The number of live ISPs dropped by 32% between the March quarter 2005 and the September quarter 2006 from 689 to 467.

• Where figures have been rounded, discrepancies may occur between the sum of components and the total. Averages have been calculated using unrounded data.

Table 1. Internet Activity Summary, Australia(a)(b)
				March Quarter 2005	September Quarter 2006
ISPs
	Very Small		no.	180	124
	Small		no.	312	199
	Medium		no.	162	112
	Large		no.	25	22
	Very Large		no.	10	10
	Total		no.	689	467
Subscribers
	Dial-up
		Business and government	'000	433	277
		Household	'000	3 744	2 472
		Total	'000	4 177	2 749
	Non dial-up
		Business and government	'000	412	549
		Household	'000	1 391	3 360
		Total	'000	1 802	3 908
	Total
		Business and government	'000	845	826
		Household	'000	5 135	5 831
		Total	'000	5 980	6 657
(a) Includes all ISPs live at the reference period.
(b) See paragraph 8 of the Explanatory Notes for a description of ISP size categories.

Table 2. Internet subscribers by subscriber type, by ISP size(a)(b)
		Dial-up		Non Dial-up		Total
		Number of subscribers	Proportion of subscribers %	Number of subscribers	Proportion of subscribers %	Number of subscribers	Proportion of subscribers %
Business and Government Subscribers
	Very Small	1	-	2	-	2	-
	Small	9	3	21	4	30	4
	Medium	32	11	53	10	85	10
	Large	44	16	90	16	134	16
	Very Large	191	69	383	70	574	69
	Total	277	100	549	100	826	100
Household Subscribers
	Very Small	2	-	1	-	2	-
	Small	36	-	19	-	55	-
	Medium	166	7	89	3	255	4
	Large	336	14	327	9	663	11
	Very Large	1 932	78	2 923	87	4 856	83
	Total	2 472	100	3 360	100	5 831	100
All Subscribers
	Very Small	2	-	3	-	5	-
	Small	45	2	40	-	85	-
	Medium	198	7	143	3	340	5
	Large	380	14	417	11	797	12
	Very Large	2 124	77	3 306	85	5 430	82
	Total	2 749	100	3 908	100	6 657	100
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)
(a) Includes all ISPs live as at 30 September 2006.
(b) See paragraph 8 of the Explanatory Notes for a description of ISP size categories.

Table 3. Internet subscribers and ISPs, by access technology(a)
		September 2006
		Number of subscribers '000	Proportion of subscribers %
Dial-up
	Analog	2 724	41
	ISDN/Satellite/Other	25	-
	Total	2 749	41
Non dial-up
	ISDN	3	-
	DSL	2 995	45
	Wireless	186	3
	Cable/Satellite/Other	725	11
	Total	3 908	59
	Total all Subscribers	6 657	100
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)
(a) Includes all ISPs live at the reference period.

Table 4. Internet subscribers by type and download speeds(a)
		September 2006
		Number of subscribers '000	Proportion of subscribers %
Business and Government Subscribers
	Less than 256 kbps	279	34
	256 kbps to less than 512 kbps	176	21
	512 kbps to less than 1.5 Mbps	218	26
	1.5 Mbps or greater	153	19
	Total Broadband(b)	547	66
	Total all access speeds	826	100
Household Subscribers
	Less than 256 kbps	2 478	42
	256 kbps to less than 512 kbps	1 150	20
	512 kbps to less than 1.5 Mbps	1 224	21
	1.5 Mbps or greater	978	17
	Total Broadband(b)	3 353	57
	Total all access speeds	5 831	100
All Subscribers
	Less than 256 kbps	2 757	41
	256 kbps to less than 512 kbps	1 327	20
	512 kbps to less than 1.5 Mbps	1 442	22
	1.5 Mbps or greater	1 131	17
	Total Broadband(b)	3 900	59
	Total all access speeds	6 657	100
(a) Includes all ISPs live at the reference period
(b) Broadband refers to an 'always on' Internet connection with an access speed equal to or greater than 256 Kbps.

Table 5. ISPs by number of subscribers by states and territories(a)
	September 2006
	Number of subscribers '000	Proportion of subscribers %
New South Wales	2 140	33
Victoria	1 597	24
Queensland	1 330	20
South Australia	453	7
Western Australia	696	11
Tasmania	157	2
Northern Territory	48	1
Australian Capital Territory	136	2
Total	6 557	100
(a) ISPs with 1,000 or more active subscribers.

Table 6. Volume of data downloaded by subscriber type by speed(a)(b)
			March Quarter 2005	September Quarter 2006
Dial-up
	Business and government	million MBs	292	354
	Household	million MBs	1 528	1 862
	Total	million MBs	1 820	2 216
Non dial-up
	Business and government	million MBs	2 960	6 378
	Household	million MBs	8 844	27 553
	Total	million MBs	11 805	33 931
Total
	Business and government	million MBs	3 253	6 733
	Household	million MBs	10 372	29 415
	Total	million MBs	13 625	36 148
(a) ISPs with more than 1,000 active subscribers.
(b) During the three months of the reference period.

Table 7. ISPs offering SPAM filtering products(a)(b)
	September Quarter 2006
	Number of ISPs
As a free service only	88
As a charged service only	10
As both a free and a charge service	22
No SPAM filtering products offered	15
(a) ISPs with more than 1,000 active subscribers.
(b) Does not include ISPs that did not respond to this question.