Australians cut spending by staying at home & surfing the net

Stuart Corner
Monday, 27 July 2009 09:11

IT Industry - Strategy

Research commissioned by Telstra suggests that Australians are responding to tough economic times by spending more time at home and increasing their usage of the Internet.

Of the 1200 respondents to the nationwide phone survey into people's habits and use of the Internet, conducted for Telstra by research firm Pure Profile, 50 percent reported spending up to five hours extra at home each week and 25 percent cited ‘surfing the internet’ for entertainment as a way of trimming their spending in tougher economic times.

Perhaps as a result of this, 50 percent of respondents reported that in the past six months they had come close to or exceeded their Internet download quota more often than in earlier times

Yet, Telstra says: "Less than one in five people are reviewing their Internet plans to ensure they fit in to their changing lifestyles - which is surprising given the amount of time customers spend online and in particular on social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace."

If by 'reviewing' Telstra means upgrading to a higher plan this result is perhaps not surprising. When times are tough people are naturally reluctant to increase their commited monthly expenditure.

However, Telstra, and other ISPs have lots of 'unmetered' content and help users identify its unmetered content, Telstra ISP Big Pond has put a green dot on all such sites.