Good news for all Aussies — our internet and mobile phone lines are getting cheaper, all around the country. Not overnight, and not by a huge amount, but it’s happening.
Broadband image via Shutterstock
The ACCC Telecommunications Report for 2013-2014 has just been released, and shows the price of telecommunications services overall have fallen 2.7 per cent in the last year. That’s not much in the grand scheme of things, but since 1997 real prices have fallen a full 50 per cent. That’s right — your internet and mobile data costs half as much as it used to.
The flow on effect of those price drops means that in the real world, broadband and mobile data quotas have become larger and speeds have become significantly faster — because your telco isn’t going to just charge you less. “Vigorous competition” is the reason for that, according to ACCC chairman Rod Sims, and it’s set to continue in the years to come.
The biggest reason for that is the NBN, which is being heavily invested in by the government while older networks like the copper phone lines used for ADSL and the hybrid fibre-coaxial network used for cable ‘net and Foxtel have comparatively less spent on them. Mobile networks, too, are blazing ahead.
Some other interesting facts appear in the ACCC’s report, too. In the last year, downloads from mobile handsets have doubled. Mobile broadband, though, has started to reach its saturation point; subscriptions to data-only services fell by 1 per cent in 2013-14 after consistent growth in the years before. The effective price of a gigabyte, once $30 in 2007, is now down to less than $1 for fixed-line broadband customers.
Here’s to more years of cheaper, faster ‘net. [ACCC]