Whirlpool’s annual survey of broadband-loving tech fiends is a great insight into what Australians think about the NBN, as well our ability to pay our broadband bills. But that’s not all: it also tells us that there are apparently 1.4 million Australians who have seven or more computers running off a single broadband connection.
According to the survey, 6.3% of respondents have seven or more computers (and no, that doesn’t include tablets or phones or consoles) consuming their broadband. If we extrapolate that out across a population of 22,500,000, that means there are 1,417,500 people around the country who have an active computer for every day of the week. Coincidentally, this is also the exact number of people who have seen every Star Wars flick more than once. (OK, I may have made that up, and it may be statistically dubious in the extreme to extrapolate 23,000-odd Whirlpool respondents to the general population. This is what Tuesdays do to you.)
Other gadget-centric facts from this year’s results:
- PCs aside, the most commonly connected gadgets are mobile phones (59.5%), consoles (47.7%), Internet TV connectors (21.8%) and tablets (18.1%).
- The most popular model of router in the survey was Billion, though its share of 23.9% doesn’t exactly make it a dominant player.
- Only 31.2% of respondents see wireless broadband as a serious option for home Internet access. Malcolm Turnbull may be one of these people.
CrowdedTrousers
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 2:27 PMi suggest (not entirely tongue in cheek) that of the Australians who have 7+ pcs connected to their broadband %100 of them would be members of whirlpool.
so I agree that extrapolation can’t be relied on when you sample from such a common-interest demographic. i’d hope the NBN has greater than 50% positive perception, but sadly I don’t think that’s true.
poedgirl
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 3:02 PM*puts hand up as one of the 6.3%* :D
Rob
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 3:03 PM“PCs aside, the most commonly connected gadgets are mobile phones (59.5%), consoles (47.7%), Internet TV connectors (21.8%) and tablets (18.1%).”
My Maths isn’t the greatest but those numbers don’t add up.
poedgirl
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 4:07 PMThose numbers come from the percentage of people to have those items. e.g. 59.5% have mobile phones on their network, 40.5% don’t. That example has no bearing on the other devices.
Nick
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 3:03 PMThat’s not so hard when you have a lot of adults living in the same house.
There are 5 people living in my house. Everyone has their own notebook, except for 1 person who has 2. Another also has a netbook. And there is 1 shared PC that basically no one ever uses. That is a total of 8. If I bring my work laptop home that’s 9.
Then we have 2 PS3′s, 1 iPhone, 1 Android Phone, 1 TV and 1 Kindle. Pretty soon I am going to add a tablet.
That brings the total to 16 (if I counted correctly).
Jason
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 3:08 PMPlease note that the survey is NOT indicative of Australia as a whole, it even says, in their words “These results largely represent the views of informed opinion leaders, and informed consumers.”.
Extrapolating 23,513 survey responses to cover the 20 million or so Australians is a bit of a stretch.
Astralux
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 3:11 PMThe fact that over 30% of the people taking the survey rated the australian broadband situation as positive and the actions the government is taking towards infrastructure expansion as positive as well just shows how clueless and easily pleased people here are. Communications infrastructure can be summed up with one word here: pathetic. I dont know any other western country in this world where the internet is so slow, where its depending on the suburb almost impossible to get broadband and where even basic mobile phone coverage cuts out in highly develed areas. The australian broadband system is nowhere nearly acceptable. Plans with download limitations and shaped connections havent been seen in europe in over 6 years. My friend in france pays 30 euros a month for a fully unlimited 1.2mb connection which includes unlimited free national calls on the landline. Here on the goldcoast i am on a 1024kbs plan which gets shaped into nothingness after 150gb of up AND download usage together and i cant upgrade to a faster adsl2 line because there arent enough free ports in the green switchbox down the road and this in a suburb which isnt even 4 years old….pathetic !
Big Windows
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 4:13 PMThis may seem stupid, however, is The Gold Coast considered regional or urban. I would think the latter, however, am not inside the collective heads of our government nor the collective heads of our telcos. You night be beig under funded because of utilisation levels … Not being told doesn’t help.
Bob
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 7:45 PMUse your brain! France is 247030 square kilometres
Bob
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 7:55 PMNot sure why that message was posted… I was trying to edit a typo.
Use your brain, ya tool! France is 547030 square kilometres vs Australia’s 7686850′s, 14 times the land mass with 25 million people compared to France’s 65 million. A basic, although innacurate equation would be, that’s 2½ times the collectable taxes for 14 times less equipment and cabling.
When Australia has the equivelant population per land mass of over 9 billion people, it’ll be fuckin’ easy.
shared-user
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 5:50 PMThis is the most common way of reducing Internet bills especially if you live in an apartment.
Thanks to the Huge installation costs ,disconnection charges, and the smaller data packages being billed exorbiantly .Just knock your neighbours door ask him if he would like to split the internet bill ,This would work out cheaper for 50GB-100GB plans,share password =Profit+sharing ,and most importantly it is not illegal.
RJ
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 6:56 PMInteresting – I have been under the impression that it is illegal to share a carriers communications outside your property unless you are a licensed carrier
Matthew Rodgers
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 8:44 PMyou must have must better neighbours than me, one of my neighbours has set his rsid to “use this and i will kill you!” lol
mjb
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 10:23 PMI would think this is a pretty standard situation.
I am a single dad with 3 boys and a Girlfriend.
We have 3 Mac’s
3 Pc’s
1 Ps3
1 Xbox
4 Ipones
1 ipad
1 DSI
1 Smart Tv
1 Apple Tv
Thats 13 devices attached to a broadband connection.
We have a 500gb plan, at 60$ a month, average speed (DL) is 65mb.
Feels like a good deal and a good service
Luccky enough to live on the lower north shore.
The real challenge for telecomunications in OZ , like roads, rail, health, etc etc is not the big cities, it regional australia.
LEts spend the money there rather than trying to fund an expensive, govt run blanket solution
cheers
MJB
alistair
Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 1:00 PMWe have
4 iPhones
2 iPads
5 PCs
Occasionally I bring the work PC home too
Amongst 4 adults
AJ
Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 9:16 PMI have
1 PC
1 MacBook Pro
1 iPhone
1 iPad
1 Galaxy Tab
on WiFi. These are just mine lol
Also had a 360 but i sold it.