The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) recently
published its annual report on telecommunications.
The ACCC’s latest “Competition and price changes in
telecommunications services in Australia” report found that prices of fixed
broadband services dropped by more than 9% in the last year and consumers are
getting more data for every dollar.
At the same time, annual prices of mobile services and
wireless broadband are also dropping by 3.1% and 6.7% respectively.
The report attributes the lowering of internet prices to the
Australian Government’s rollout of the faster and more affordable National
Broadband Network (NBN)
Australian Minister for Communications and the Arts Senator
Mitch Fifield also commented that more affordable National Broadband Network
(NBN) rollout is delivering lower internet bills and lower taxes for
Australians.
According to the ACCC report, consumers are also getting
more broadband bang for their buck, with five times as many broadband plans now
offer unlimited data.
The latest ACCC report follows recent data released by NBN
which showed that changes to wholesale pricing have led to a better broadband
experience for users. Congestion on the network has plummeted from almost 5
hours per week to just 12 minutes over the past year, and half of new users on
the network are taking up faster 50Mbps wholesale speed plans.
The Australian Government is putting a range of new
protections in place to ensure broadband customers get the level of service
they expect from their retail service provider as they transition to the NBN.
In addition, the ACCC has commenced a broadband monitoring
program which will provide consumers with accurate, independent and comparable
information about broadband speeds and performance across a variety of retail
service providers.
As reported
earlier, the Bureau of Communications and Arts Research of Australia (BCAR)
has released a
working paper that examines the demand for fixed-line broadband in Australia
over the next
decade.
Despite rapid growth in this demand, the BCAR paper shows that in
2026 the fixed-line broadband needs of Australian households will be well
served by the current infrastructure investment in NBN.
The full ACCC report can be found here.
Feature
image: Tmthetom/ CC BY-SA
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