Remember dial-up internet? That incredibly slow and awkward way that you used to use to access the internet back in the 90s and early naughties? Well, it’s still around, although it is dying a slow and painful death.
the good news is that the Australian Bureau of Statistics has announced that for the very first time, Broadband has overtaken dial-up as the method of choice for Australian consumers to access porn the Internet.
If the concept of people still using dial-up offends your geeky sensibilities (like it does ours), then you can take solace in the fact that these results – published today – are actually from 2006-2007, and are in comparison to results from 2004-2005.
From the ABS Report Australian Social Trends 2008:
In just two years, the rate of Broadband Internet connections increased from 16% of Australian households in 2004-05 to 43% in 2006-07, becoming more prevalent than dial-up connections (20% of households in 2006-07) for the first time. Broadband now accounts for between one-half and two-thirds of all Internet connections at home across almost all demographic groups and geographic areas.
It’s weird. Despite the fact that they address the rapid uptake of broadband as a technology, they seem to forget that technology is advancing a lot faster than other areas statistics cover. Those results are well over 12 months old – by now I would assume that 60-70 percent of households would have broadband, and by the time the next report comes out, it should be up in the 90 percent range. Dial up today is most likely a relic from an ancient time, not 20% of the market.
Which makes this whole report a bit of a waste of time (for us here today – it’s still important from a historical perspective). Hopefully one day we’ll see real-time statistics so we can report on current events…