A report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has shown Australian communication methods are changing, with phone talk time dropping while downloading is on the rise.
The ACCC’s Communications Market Report for 2018-19 has found that the rapid take-up of streaming services such as Netflix, Stan, Optus Sport and Kayo Sports contributed to a 47 per cent jump in data downloads over the year.
According to the report, fixed broadband services accounted for 88 per cent of all data downloaded.
Chair of the ACCC, Rod Sims said the report showed that minutes spent using traditional voice services on mobile phones dropped for the first time, reflecting the increasing use of social media and messaging services like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Viber.
“At the same time, the proportion of Australians who solely rely on mobile services for broadband is declining, dropping from 23 per cent in 2014 to 16 per cent in 2019,” Mr Sims said.
“Unlimited data fixed broadband plans have increased from six per cent in 2014-15 to 57 per cent in 2018-19.”
Mr Sims said the quality of Australia’s communications services was also improving, allowing more people to use data-heavy activities like streaming in high definition.
“This trend is likely to be further boosted during 2019-20 with the entry of new competitors such as Disney+ and Apple TV+,” he said.
“Investments in mobile networks, particularly with 5G, may bring stronger network-based competition to the NBN.”
“However, the scale of 5G deployment is still uncertain in the short term as some of the future-use cases of 5G (e.g. network slicing and mass machine-to-machine connectivity) are less clear.”
He noted that consumer complaints to the ACCC and the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman remained high, with many relating to connection and service quality issues.
