Broadband demand on the up: ACCC

More than half a million connections have been hooked up to broadband, according to a report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

The report found that there were now over 500,000 broadband connections in Australia. Recorded at the end of June, the figure is up from the 258,100 recorded at the same time last year (an increase of 100 percent).

Michael Cosgrave, general manager of telecommunications at the ACCC, told CRN that the reports were carried out to gather information for the organisation.

Cosgrave said that the reports didn't currently break down the spread of broadband uptake geographically, but it was looking at including this in the next report, which was due out in November.

Asked by CRN about ongoing comments by industry pundits that Australia lagged behind other countries in terms of takeup, Cosgrave said that it had found 'the takeup of broadband has [been] most dynamic where [there's] robust competition between cable and copper infrastructure'.

'Our role is not the promotion of broadband itself, but to ensure a competitive telco sector,' he said. 'If [there's] a competitive telco sector, services and products consumers most desire will come forward.'

The report looked at the deployment of broadband services around Australia, based on data provided by telco carriers that provide these services.

It found that the greater growth rate in the past quarter had been due to DSL takeup. This had grown from 218,800 in the January to March quarter, to 288,100 over the April to June timeframe.

Broadband was defined by the report as high-speed connections greater than 200Kb/s over a range of media. It excluded PSTN dial up connections that ran at 56Kb/s and ISDN dial-up connections which run at 64 or 128Kb/s.

These figures were based on questions the ACCC asked telco carriers. These included the number of business and residential customers, and the geographic availability of its service.