Internet in Australia
Parts of this article (those related to Current State of Internet in Australia) need to be updated. The reason given is: Section does not account for NBN Developments in the last 10 years..(August 2022) |
Internet in Australia first became available on a permanent basis to universities in
History
Early days
Australia was recognised as part of the Internet when the .au domain (
The first permanent circuit connecting
In 1992 there were two commercial ISPs competing with one another. DIALix provided services to Perth, and the other was
A further early provider was the not-for-profit Australian Public Access Network Association (APANA). Founded in 1992 by Mark Gregson, APANA ran many small, widely dispersed gratis hosts for bulletin board systems and newsgroups, but developed into a provider of low-cost, non-commercial access to the Internet for its members.[1]
First broadband
In the mid-late 1990s,
Internet Peering
In 1995, the Western Australian Internet Association (WAIA) was formed (now known as the Internet Association of Australia), and in 1997 it launched one of the first peering points in the country with the Western Australian Internet Exchange service.
Competition, faster broadband
Gradually, larger ISPs began taking over more of the delivery infrastructure themselves by taking advantage of regulated access to the
In 2005, Telstra announced it would invest A$210 million in upgrading all of its ADSL exchanges to support ADSL2+ by mid-2006, though they did not say whether they would continue to restrict access speeds.
In late 2006, Telstra uncapped its retail and wholesale ADSL offerings to the maximum attainable speed of
Wireless broadband in Australia is widespread, with many point-to-point fixed wireless broadband providers serving broadband-poor regional and rural areas, predominantly with
Delivering broadband to rural areas
Delivering competitive telecommunications services to regional and rural areas is a major issue, with Telstra often providing the only telecommunications backhaul transmission infrastructure. The large distance and small population means that providers interested in serving these areas often must invest large amounts of capital with low returns. Agile Communications is a pioneer of deploying cost-effective, competitive backhaul networks including their own microwave network in rural South Australia.[22] Internode has been active in increasing access in order to be accessible to more people, spending $3.5 million. This expansion will include both "wireless and fixed line-broadband (ADSL 2+)".[23]
In June 2006, the Australian
We have said all along, will honour existing contracts. There are a number of performance hurdles the OPEL contracts have to meet. That's all part of the contract.
—Minister for Communications, Lateline Business, 2007-12-05
On 2 April 2008, it was announced that the funding agreement for Opel Networks had been cancelled.[32] The minister cited OPEL's failure to meet the terms of the contract,[33] a claim refuted by the OPEL joint venture partners, who nevertheless stated that the project would not proceed.[34][35]
Innovation in broadband delivery
In November 2007 the first Naked DSL product was announced by iiNet.[36] Shortly after this other internet providers also started to provide DSL products without telephony service over copper, reducing line rental fees.[37][38]
Broadband Advisory Group 2003
In a report released on 22 January 2003 the Howard government's Broadband Advisory Group (BAG) recommended the Federal Government work with other governments and industry stakeholders to form a 'national broadband network'.[39] A subsequent Senate committee recommend the Federal Government replace the 'increasingly obsolete' copper network with a new network based on fibre to the node (FTTN) or alternative technologies.[40]
Telstra Copper Upgrade proposal 2005
On 15 November 2005 Telstra, the owner of the national copper network, announced a plan to upgrade its ageing networks, including a rollout of a fibre to the node (FTTN) network. At the time, the Federal Government was the majority shareholder of Telstra, but the plan did not involve any additional government investment.[41][42] The rollout was later put on hold after the Howard Government refused to exempt the new network from laws requiring third party access, instead saying Telstra could achieve the exemption by applying to the competition regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).[43][44] Telstra dropped plans for the new network on 7 August 2006, after reaching an impasse in negotiations with the ACCC.[45] Former ACCC chairman, Graeme Samuel later said the proposal was 'an illusion on cost and on the capacity to truly deliver high-speed broadband to end users'.[46]
Broadband Connect Policy and OPEL Networks 2006/07
In June 2006 the Broadband Connect policy was announced by the Howard Government with an aim of providing greater access to broadband services in rural and regional areas.[47]
G9 Consortium 2007
Nine telecommunications companies—
Internet statistics
This section needs to be updated.(March 2017) |
In March 2007, there were approximately 4.33 million broadband subscribers in Australia and 2.09 million narrowband subscribers.[52] Between December 2007 and June 2008 there was an increase in the number of wireless internet subscribers from 433,000 to 809,000.[53]
Customers on connection speeds of 1.5 Mbit/s have increased from 2.47 million (37% of total) in December 2007 to 3.10 million (43% of total) in June 2008.[53] In December 2008 there were 7.996 million Internet subscribers representing a year on year increase of 13%. There was a decrease of 30% in the number of dial internet subscribers, and an increase of 28% in the number of non-dial subscribers.[54] Currently, Australia has a theoretical 5637734.4 Mbit/s of transpacific bandwidth, however lit capacity is much less.
Broadband Services Dec 2016 | |
---|---|
Broadband type | Number connections |
Total Internet services | 13.461 million |
DSL | 4.716 million |
Cable | 1.048 million |
Fibre | 1.431 million |
Satellite | 76,000 |
Wireless | 6.109 million |
Other | 1000 |
- Internet service providers (ISPs): 63
- Very large: 10
- Large: 19
- Medium: 10 (June 2008)[54]
- Country code: .au
Year | Internet access | Broadband Internet access (a)(b) |
---|---|---|
1998 | 16% | n.a. |
1999 | 22% | n.a. |
2000 | 32% | n.a. |
2001 | 42% | n.a. |
2002 | 46% | n.a. |
2003 | 53% | n.a. |
2004–05 | 56% | 16% |
2005–06 | 60% | 28% |
2006–07 | 64% | 43% |
2007–08 | 67% | 52% |
2009–10 | 72% | 62% |
2010–11 | 79% | 73% |
2012-13 | 83% | 77% |
2014-2015 | 86% | N/A |
(a) Data not collected on broadband before 2004–05[56] (b)[57]
Social trends
Purpose of Internet Use at Home 06-07 | respondents could answer multiple options |
---|---|
Personal/private | 98% |
Education/study | 53% |
Work/business | 52% |
Voluntary/community | 12% |
Other | 11% |
Internet access and at use at home by age 06-07
Age group (years) | Internet access | Internet use |
---|---|---|
15–24 | 79.7% | 76.5% |
25–34 | 75.8% | 71.8% |
35–44 | 80.2% | 72.6% |
45–54 | 78.5% | 66.5% |
55–64 | 64.7% | 51.7% |
65–74 | 42.2% | 28.1% |
75+ | 21.8% | 10.5% |
Total | 69.5% | 60.9% |
Pricing
In October 2008, the
Economic
In 2010, the Internet was reported as contributing A$50 billion (US$53 billion) or 3.6 percent of Australia's gross domestic product. The contribution is second after the leading mining sector and is half of the value of the mining sector. The Internet industry directly employed 190,000 Australians.[62]
Current state of the Internet in Australia
Residential internet access
Residential broadband Internet access is available in Australia using ADSL, cable, fibre, satellite and wireless technologies. Since July 2008 almost two thirds of Australian households have had internet access, with broadband connections outnumbering dial-up two to one.[63] According to the recent ABS statistics the non-dial-up services outnumber dial up services 3.6 to 1.
The most common form of residential broadband is ADSL, which uses existing copper telephone lines. In Australia, the major telephone company,
Various providers offer wireless networks dedicated to broadband, both in metropolitan and rural areas.[65][66] Wireless internet is better suited to the more rural areas of Australia due to the larger distances and lower population density which make traditional lines costly. New business models have been used in order to encourage the take up of wireless internet. Prepaid, a concept that has been seen in mobile phones, is being transferred to wireless internet.[citation needed]
The major mobile phone networks provide 3G data connectivity using HSDPA over 3GSM.[67] These are also considered a solution for providing broadband in regional areas[68]
Most Australian ISP plans traffic shape residential customers after a monthly download quota has been exceeded. Shaped connection speeds are typically claimed to be 64-256 kbit/s (kilo-bits) per second, depending on the plan, although 64 kbit/s is barely-usable and an industry standard slow-usable minimum would be reasonable.
Other ISP plans apply "per gigabyte" excess charges to downloads beyond the monthly download quota.[citation needed] The duopoly on internet access into Australia was broken in 2009 with the coming into service of the PPC-1 cable to Guam. Despite this there has been significant consumer dissatisfaction with the service due to the obsolete technology used in the network.[69]
Internet in rural areas
Internet in Australia has great differences between urban and rural areas. With the March 2007 announcement of the Broadband Guarantee program, which will replace the Broadband Connect program, many long-term projects to bring Internet to Rural Areas are under review. A week after the announcement, Internode suspended its programs to bring Broadband to the Country[70] and many others providers are having to follow suit as the cancellation of the Connect program has removed the financial incentive for ISPs to "supply higher bandwidth services in regional, rural and remote areas of Australia at prices comparable".[71]
In March 2007, the ALP announced a new policy, accepting the privatization of Telstra in order to fund a world class national broadband network.[72][73]
Due to Telstra's extensive use of pair-gain technology for connecting home landlines from 1994 to 2000, some homes have been excluded from ADSL and are limited to a dialup speed of 28.8 kbit/s.[74]
International connectivity
Due to Australia's large size, sparse population, and relative remoteness to other countries, a significant amount of infrastructure is required for Internet communications. The vast majority of Australia's international Internet transit capacity is sourced from undersea fibre-optic communications cables to Asia and the US.[
Network neutrality
In 2006 the top three ISPs stated that they did not discriminate between peer-to-peer internet activity and normal internet activity. Peer-to-peer activity is counted towards a customer's limit and if the customer exceeds that limit then they will have their account shaped. However,
IPv6
With the
Internet filtering plans
This section needs to be updated.(August 2015) |
On 31 December 2007, Stephen Conroy announced the federal government's intention to censor "inappropriate material" from the Internet.
National Broadband Network
The National Broadband Network was initially a
Security
Cyber attacks
In 2016, the Government released Australia's Cyber Security Strategy.[90][91]
In June 2020 Prime Minister Scott Morrison revealed that Australian organisations, including governments and businesses, and key infrastructure were being targeted by a sophisticated foreign state-based hacker.[92]
Internet censorship
Australia is classified as Under Surveillance by
See also
- Internet access worldwide
- Telecommunications in Australia
- Internet censorship in Australia
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External links
- Whirlpool – "Whirlpool.net.au is a fully independent, non-commercial, community website, run by a team of unpaid volunteers, which is devoted to keeping the public informed about the state of broadband in Australia." Australian ADSL news, information, and forums.
- Internet Choice – Broadband Comparison website comparing a range of the leading internet providers in Australia.