077/04
28 June 2005

More than 1.8 million broadband services connected

A report released today shows Australia’s take-up of broadband services has increased by 122 per cent since March 2004, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Helen Coonan, said today.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s latest Snapshot of Broadband Deployment shows there were 1,839,700 broadband services in operation at the end of March 2005.

Growth in the demand for broadband services continues to be strong and was at 18.8 per cent for the March quarter. ADSL broadband continues to be the most popular access technology with almost 1.3 million subscribers.

“This positive result provides further evidence of the rapid progress that has been made in making broadband services available to Australians at attractive prices,” Senator Coonan said.

“A number of factors have contributed to the exponential growth in broadband take-up.

“There are a significant number of service providers now offering a range of highly competitive broadband services, the success of the Government’s Higher Bandwidth Incentive Scheme (HiBIS) has delivered broadband to an increasing number of rural and regional Australians and the anticipated benefits of the new Metropolitan Broadband Blackspots Program will ensure this strong growth continues.”

The ACCC’s Snapshot of Broadband Deployment can be found at www.accc.gov.au