[LINK] Wireless Internet Popular in Australia

[Richard Chirgwin]

  Looking at the ABS data itself, I'll correct. I'm not working through 
the whole exercise, but:

Wireless users - 3.5 million
Wireless downloads - 13.3 thousand TB

DSL - 4.2 million users
DSL downloads - 142 thousand TB

RC

On 21/09/10 9:29 AM, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
>    On 21/09/10 9:22 AM, Tom Worthington wrote:
>> The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported a 21.7% increase in Mobile
>> wireless Internet use from December 2009 to June 2010 (Internet
>> Activity, Australia, June 2010):
>> <http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/8153.0/>.
>>
>> I am being interviewed on ABC Local Radio 666 about this at 9:30am.
>>
>> Note that the ABS has had some difficulties with what is the definition
>> of fixed and mobile wireless and so the figures need to be treated with
>> caution. It may be that this over reports use, where people get wireless
>> Internet free with something they buy, or unreported it, where they have
>> a data service bundled with their mobile phones. However, popularity of
>> wireless raises questions as to the need for and viability of the fixed
>> fibre optic National Broadband Network. Other statistics:
>>
>>        * At the end of June 2010, there were 9.6 million active internet
>> subscribers in Australia.
>>        * The phasing out of dial-up internet connections continued with
>> nearly 92% of internet connections now being non dial-up. Australians
>> also continued to access increasingly faster download speeds, with 71%
>> of access connections offering a download speed of 1.5Mbps or greater.
>>        * Digital subscriber line (DSL) continued to be the major
>> technology for connections, accounting for 44% of the total internet
>> connections. However, this percentage share has decreased since December
>> 2009 when DSL represented 47% of the total connections.
>>        * Mobile wireless (excluding mobile handset connections) was the
>> fastest growing technology in internet access, increasing to 3.5 million
>> in June 2010. This represents a 21.7% increase from December 2009. ...
> Tom,
>
> 1. The ABS does not identify overlap, so it is a mistake to consider DSL
> and wireless as exclusive.
>
> 2. As John Lindsay just pointed out on Twitter, fixed broadband
> generates an aggregate of 300 Gbps of backbone traffic in Australia.
> Wireless, in his estimate, generates around 1% of this - about 3 Gbps.
> So in terms of what generates traffic, wireless remains very small.
>
> I think this alone makes the "we don't need the NBN argument"
> non-viable. It's used - rather, abused - by people with a partisan
> interest, or those who merely dislike the idea of all that money being
> spent on the NBN. Or Telstra shareholders.
>
> RC
>>
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