Broadband in Aussie homes nearly doubles

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 17 December 2006 20:46

Your IT - Home IT

2.3 million Australian homes now have broadband up to June 1, 2006, with DSL used in 83% of broadband enabled households - but at what speeds?

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released its latest report on Internet usage in Australia, with the good news that broadband take-up is rapidly rising.

Unfortunately the report does not specify the different speeds that people are attaining when connecting to broadband, with the ABS definition being an always-on 256kbps as the minimum.

The report indicates OECD countries measure broadband in different ways, some simply by ADSL or cable connections, while the report in its notes makes specific mention of Iceland only counting connections of 2Mbps or greater as being broadband.

If only we counted broadband in the same way – our stats would not be as great. 256kbps really is ‘fraudband’, but at least its better than nothing, and now that Telstra has uncapped ADSL 1 speeds to up to 8Mbps, we will hopefully see much faster connections being taken up by the public.

Still, based on the ABS definition of broadband, things are looking up. According to the ABS, 34% of all households in metropolitan areas are connected to broadband, compared with 19% of all households in non-metropolitan areas.

Of interest are some stats on households without Internet. The ABS says that: “The main reasons given by households without home Internet access in 2005-06, were "No use for the Internet" (24%), followed by "Lack of interest in Internet" (23%) and "Costs are too high" (19%)”.

The ABS also states that a majority of Australian children are using the Internet.

The majority (92%) of children aged 5-14 years used a computer and close to two-thirds (65%) accessed the Internet during the reference period, according to an ABS survey on Children's Participation in Cultural and Leisure Activities 2006.

The use of a computer or accessing the Internet for school or educational activities was the most common activity, reported respectively by 79% and 82% children. The most common Internet sites accessed by children for school or educational activities or leisure related to "Technology and science" (39%), although given kids are kids, any unsavoury uses of the Internet are unlikely to be reported to adults, teachers or parents.

Broadband Internet connections were the most popular way of accessing the Internet, reported by 65% of children using the Internet at home.

A 76 page report in PDF is freely downloadable from the ABS website if you’d like to read through all the detailed stats, facts and figures.