The report shows the number of Australians connecting to broadband from home increased by 150,000 between May and July to 500,000, or 8.6 percent of Internet users. This reinforces Telstra's claims of a doubling in demand for broadband over the last six months.
Although this increase in uptake is promising, Australia has a long way to go to catch up to the levels of broadband penetration in other parts of the world, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.
"Based on the assumption it will continue to grow at that rate you're looking at [reaching 50 percent penetration] within five years," Nielsen//NetRatings spokesperson Mark Henning told ZDNet Australia. He added growth depended on marketing by ISPs and availability of content.
"People are always going to question how much they pay for a service, but price is also a function of the value you get from a service," said Reid. He said people would pay for the added value of an always-on connection, faster speed and more content. "There's no doubt about it."
Nielsen//NetRatings senior analyst Andrew Reid explained the surge in broadband uptake by citing figures from advertising expenditure analysis company Nielsen AdEx that show the boost in broadband take-up correlates with an increase in marketing and advertising by the main ISPs.
-According to advertising information figures provided by Nielsen AdEx, spending on advertising in the broadband Internet Service Providers category went from AU$265,000 in January this year to AU$2,313,000 in March, an increase of over 800%," said Reid. Although spending then dipped back to around AU$1.5 million in April, it began climbing again and hit AU$2,183,000 in June. Telstra was the dominant advertiser in this period, according to Reid.
-Broadband users spend nearly twice as much time online as their narrowband counterparts - broadband users spend an average of 14 hours 35 minutes online and view an average of 1046 pages each, narrowband users spend 7 hours 46 minutes and view 483 pages each," said Reid.
A survey by Nielsen Panorama between April and June this year found that 42 percent of consumers who had accessed the Internet were willing to pay more for faster access, a 16 percent increase on the same time last year.
Henning was at a loss to explain why broadband usage was less than 10 percent if more than 40 percent of Internet users indicated they were willing to pay extra for the service.
"I don't have the answer as to why they're not on it at the moment," he said. "It might be they haven't been marketed to, at this point, in a way that compels them to take up the service. The question also doesn't address how much they are willing to pay."
The reason we are not using broadband is that we simply cannot get it.
Look around Sydney at all the new housing estates with sub-standard ni-RIM Telstra exchanges that only support 28.8K max modem connections, no ADSL, no ISDN, no Optus cable, no Foxtel cable.
Where is the target market ? Professionals who are buying into these brand new suburbs with no access to meaningful broadband ! Simple !