137/05
7 December 2005

Australia ’s telco industry contributes $12 billion to the economy

The Australian economy is $12.4 billion larger because of Government reforms to liberalise the telecommunications industry according to an Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) report presented to Parliament today by the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Helen Coonan.

ACMA’s annual telecommunications performance report shows Australians now have 18.4 million mobile phones (around 90 per cent of the population), SMS use grew 33 per cent with 6.74 billion messages sent and 7.7 million handsets were sold in the last 12 months.

With such high take-up of mobile telephony there was, as expected, a decline in the number of fixed line phones – down two per cent in the last 12 months. GSM mobile coverage is now available to 96 per cent of the population and CDMA covers 98 per cent of the population.

Broadband customer numbers rose by 108 per cent to more than 2.1 million and there was a 158 per cent increase in total data volumes downloaded, reflecting growing demand and increased affordability of broadband.

Take-up of broadband in regional areas was particularly good as the availability of terrestrial broadband increases.

A key driver has been the Australian Government’s Higher Bandwidth Incentive Scheme (HiBIS) and this will continue under the $878 million Broadband Connect program which will commence in January next year.

ACMA’s report also includes data gleaned from the first full year of operation of the Spam Act 2003. The Act commenced in December 2003 and its penalty provisions came into effect in April 2004.

“As a direct result of the Spam Act, global spam originating from Australia is almost non-existent – only one per cent of total spam received in this country. This is down from two per cent on last year,” Senator Coonan said.

The report shows the number of players in the telecommunications market increased from 1043 to 1135 carriers and carriage service providers. The number of Internet service providers declined by five to 689.

“Investment in new networks and innovation in services have also contributed to industry expansion, particularly in the broadband, third generation mobile and VOIP markets,” Senator Coonan said.