With more than half a million new services added between July and September, the NBN is now providing over 6.1 million residential broadband services, according to the ACCC's latest quarterly Wholesale Market Indicators Report released today.
The report also shows that more wholesale access seekers are directly connecting with the NBN at more NBN points of interconnect (POIs). There were at least nine different wholesale access seeker groups directly connected to the NBN at all of the 121 POIs in the September quarter, while at least ten access seekers were connected at 119 of the POIs.
Telstra remains the dominant acquirer of wholesale NBN services, with 48.1 per cent of all connections. While market shares vary each quarter, Telstra's market share has declined from a peak of 50.1 per cent in June 2017, and TPG Group's market share has fallen from about 23.4 per cent to 22 per cent.
During the same period, Optus increased its market share from 12.8 per cent to 15.2 per cent while Vocus' share fell slightly. The collective share of other access seekers increased from about 5.7 per cent to 7.3 per cent.
"We are pleased to see smaller service providers steadily acquiring services in more places across Australia. This continues to encourage healthy competition for the benefit of consumers and businesses who rely on the NBN," ACCC Chair Rod Sims said.
The number of higher speed plans taken up by Australian consumers continues to increase. Almost two thirds of all NBN services are now higher speed services of 50Mbps and above.
50Mbps plans continue to be the most popular, comprising 57.1 per cent of all NBN residential services, while 100Mbps plans account for 8.5 per cent.
While access seekers have taken advantage of promotions and wholesale bundles to entice consumers onto higher speed plans, more than 2.1 million Australians remain on 12Mbps and 25Mbps plans. Just over 1 million consumers are on the entry-level 12Mbps speed tier.
"These lower speed products play a crucial role in the transition from legacy services to the NBN. The ACCC is committed to ensuring that customers who have no need for, or do not want, higher speed services have access to basic affordable broadband products on the NBN," Mr Sims said.
In October the ACCC announced an inquiry into NBN wholesale charges with a focus on entry-level products.
Connectivity Virtual Circuit (CVC), which is the NBN bandwidth acquired by wholesale access seekers to provide data to their customers, increased 3.2 per cent on a per user basis over the quarter from 1.75Mbps to 1.80Mbps. This has grown from 1.01Mbps in March 2016, when the ACCC's first Wholesale Market Indicators Report was published.
Further information, including time series data, is available on the ACCC website at NBN Wholesale Market Indicators.
Background
The ACCC's Wholesale Market Indicators report contains information on wholesale access
services acquired over the NBN.
An NBN wholesale access service is used by an NBN access seeker to supply a retail service to its own customers or, alternatively, to supply a wholesale service to another RSP.
Most small RSPs do not directly connect with NBN Co, instead reselling NBN services acquired from other NBN access seekers (such as Telstra, TPG and Optus).
Change in speed tiers December 2017 to September 2019
| TC4 AVCs |
12Mbps |
25Mbps |
50Mbps |
100Mbps |
| December 2017 |
1,022,494 |
1,884,662 |
158,959 |
400,848 |
| Low/high speed |
83.8% |
16.2% |
||
| September 2019 |
1,005,244 |
1,119,492 |
3,532,116 |
523,095 |
| Low/high speed |
34.3% |
65.5% |
||
