Although the number of broadband subscribers more than doubled in the 12 months to March 31, from 199,800 to 423,600, the growth rate is around half what it was six months ago.
In the April-June 2002 quarter broadband users grew by 29.2 percent, which fell to 21 percent for the July-September 2002 quarter and again to 16.4 percent in the October-December 2002 quarter.
"It is encouraging that the growth rate over the last quarter remained steady rather than continuing to decline," said the Chairman of the ACCC, Professor Allan Fels.
"This is still of concern, however, as Australia is lagging behind many other developed nations in terms of broadband take-up. Broadband markets in Australia will need to develop much more quickly if Australia is to retain, let alone improve, its comparative international position."
Australia has fallen to 19th position in the OECD rankings of the number of broadband users per 100 inhabitants.
Data from the National Office of the Information Economy also paints a bleak picture of Australia's broadband usage, with only five percent of Australian home Internet connections via broadband, compared to Hong Kong (52 percent), Singapore (25 percent), the US (19 percent) and France (13 percent).
However, a Telstra spokesperson predicted the next Snapshot of Broadband Deployment would show an increase in new demand. The spokesperson told ZDNet Australia that the AU$100 discount on installation costs for all its broadband services offered in March caused a spike in uptake, and has continued the offer through to mid-July.
Telstra takes issue over the OECD rankings, claiming that when the takeup is considered in terms of how long broadband has been available in a country, Australia is ahead of the UK, USA and Canada. A Telstra spokesperson also said there is no evidence that Australia is being "left behind" due to the slower take up.
Citing research by McKinsey the Telstra spokesperson said broadband is more available in Australia than a number of other countries, ranking third out of 16 countries, and the issue was encouraging people to use the service rather than providing increasing reach.
| 31-Mar-02 | Cable | Satellite | ADSL | Other DSL | Other | Totals |
| Residential | 113100 | 5200 | 29000 | 2900 | 150300 | |
| Business | 10800 | 1300 | 22200 | 1000 | 100 | 35400 |
| Other | 300 | 800 | 13000 | 14100 | ||
| Totals | 124200 | 7300 | 64200 | 3900 | 100 | 199800 |
| 31-Mar-03 | Cable | Satellite | ADSL | Other DSL | Other | Totals |
| Residential | 175900 | 8200 | 69700 | 10800 | 0 | 264600 |
| Business | 16000 | 3000 | 51600 | 4900 | 300 | 75800 |
| Unspecified | 1400 | 39300 | 24500 | 83200 | ||
| Totals | 191900 | 12600 | 160600 | 58200 | 300 | 423600 |
Source: Snapshot of Broadband Deployment, ACCC
T(H)elstra's greed blinds them to the real cause of the slow takeup in broadband. No other country caps the data volume used by broadband customers. T(H)elstra did it 1st and the other telcos followed suit like sheep. Get real guys. While you penalise customers for using streaming services you will not see an increase in home use. 100% of nothing is NOTHING. It wouldn't matter if you gave the installation away for free, so stop making excuses for your lousy marketing policy and blatant greed.