1350.0 - Australian Economic Indicators, Sep 2001
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 31/08/2001
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Special Article - Internet Activity Australia
Most of these data items are available at a regional level. This article discusses the background to the survey and some findings from the first three quarters of data. INDUSTRY BACKGROUND: WHY SURVEY INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS? Internet Service Provision is one of a number of new Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) industries which have arisen in recent years. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are the main avenue1 of Internet access for Australian businesses, households and government. There is a strong policy need for statistics on the ISP component of the Telecommunications industry in Australia and how it is evolving over time. There is also interest in the characteristics and location of Internet subscribers, and the nature of related Internet service infrastructure. The ISP industry itself also seeks information to better understand the structure of the industry and to provide reliable benchmarking measures. Results of the survey are released three months after the end of each reference period, thus ensuring that data collected are timely and reflect changes and developments in the ISP industry. RESULTS AND FINDINGS Table 1 shows that the number of ISPs has declined over the six months since 30 September 2000. This is despite a number of new ISPs entering the market. There were 718 ISPs operating at the end of the September quarter 2000. Despite 23 new ISPs commencing during the December Quarter, there were also 45 ISPs that either closed down or ceased to provide ISP services leaving a net decrease over the quarter of 22 (3.1%). Similarly for the March quarter 2001, 32 new ISPs commenced with 63 cessations, a net decrease of 31 (4.5%) leaving 665 operators. Most of the decrease has been in the small (101 to 1000 subscribers) category over the three quarters, with all other categories remaining fairly stable. TABLE 1. INTERNET ACTIVITY SUMMARY, AUSTRALIA(a)
The ISP industry is clearly a dynamic industry and it is possible that seasonality may exist in the quarterly data. However, the time series is far too short to confirm whether there is a seasonal pattern, or to make any seasonal adjustment. Very large ISPs provided Internet access for 56% of all subscribers at the end of the March quarter. This compares with 28%, 12%, 4% and 0.1% respectively for Large, Medium, Small and Very small ISPs. PROPORTION OF SUBSCRIBERS BY ISP SIZE - MARCH 2001 Whilst there has been a continuing increase in total subscriber numbers, there have been some movements in the make up of those subscribers, as shown in Table 2. The most noticeable trend in subscriber numbers is the decrease in free subscribers. Although there have been significant decreases in free subscribers each quarter, this has been compensated for by the growth in paid subscriber numbers, resulting in an overall increase in total subscribers. TABLE 2: INTERNET ACCESS PLANS
There were 1,040 million megabytes (Mbs) of data downloaded by subscribers during the March quarter 2001. This level has remained stable over the three quarters of the survey (1,052 in September 2000 and 1,050 in December 2000). During the March quarter 2001, household subscribers downloaded 611 million Mbs of data (59% of the total) while business and government subscribers downloaded 428 million Mbs. There was an overall average of 262 Mbs of data downloaded per Internet subscriber, with household subscribers averaging 175 Mbs of data downloaded, and business and government subscribers averaging 888 Mbs. TABLE 3. STATE AND TERRITORY SUMMARY
Regional Results Table 3 shows a breakdown of ISPs by State and Territory. From the December quarter 2000 to the March quarter 2001, the following changes occurred at a regional level:
One strength of the Internet Activity Survey is its ability to provide data below State level. Data are produced at Statistical Divisions and ARIA2 levels according to the location of the POP (Tables 5.1 and 5.2 in the publication). For example, in the March quarter nearly all subscribers accessed a POP located in either highly accessible (89%) or accessible (8%) regions in Australia. Only 1% (49,000) of subscribers accessed a POP in very remote or remote regions and 2% (84,000) in moderately accessible regions. The number of subscribers per access line in highly accessible regions was 8.1, in accessible regions 8.2, moderately accessible regions 8.8, remote regions 9.3 and very remote regions 7.5. Access Technologies Internet access technology is rapidly changing with a vast range of technologies available to access the Internet including: analog, digital, satellite, Wireless Applications Protocol (WAP), and microwave. There is keen policy interest in the growth of broadband technologies such as Cable and Digital Subscriber Line (DSL). The survey shows that from September quarter 2000 to March quarter 2001, DSL subscribers increased from 6,000 to 27,000. ABS CONTACT Further information on the Internet Activity Survey can be obtained by contacting Dean Bloom on Brisbane 07 3222 6404 or email dean.bloom@abs.gov.au Information on all ABS activities in the field of information technology statistics is available from the Information Technology Statistics theme page on the ABS web site (www.abs.gov.au). Select themes from the homepage menu. FOOTNOTES 1 Libraries, Internet kiosks and Internet cafes which provide Internet access on a casual basis are excluded from the survey. 2 Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA) defines remoteness in terms of accessibility to defined service centres. Localities which are remote have less access to service centres and conversely, those which are less remote have greater access to service centres. Document Selection These documents will be presented in a new window.
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