The number of residential NBN services declined for the first time in the December 2022 quarter, by 0.1 per cent - or almost 9,000 - to approximately 8.73 million, the ACCC's latest NBN Wholesale Market Indicators Report reveals.
The report looks at the wholesale market for NBN services, in which retail service providers purchase access for supply to consumers and businesses.
The top three providers, Telstra, TPG and Optus, collectively experienced a decrease of almost 95,000 services, to 6.8 million. This reduced their market shares slightly to 42.4 per cent, 22.4 per cent and 13.1 per cent respectively.
Conversely, the report found that Vocus and other smaller providers gained approximately 86,000 services, to 1.9 million, making up the remaining 22.1 per cent of the market.
This was a trend throughout 2022, where NBN services acquired by the four largest providers - Telstra, TPG, Optus and Vocus - decreased by over 227,000 services annually while other smaller providers gained almost 363,000 services.
"This shift from the larger providers to smaller ones is helping to enable greater competition within the sector," ACCC Commissioner Anna Brakey said.
The report also found that while the 50 Mbps speed tier remains the most popular, accounting for almost 53 per cent of residential services, it decreased by more than 131,000 services (1.4 percentage points) during the quarter.
There was a large increase in the second-most popular 100 Mbps tier, with almost 190,000 new services (2.2 percentage points), making it account for over 13 per cent of all services.
This quarter also saw decreases in the 250 Mbps and 12 Mbps tier services, approximately 54,000 and 28,000 (0.6 and 0.3 percentage points) respectively, to 1.3 per cent and 8.8 per cent of residential NBN services.
"We continue to see consumers choosing higher speed products, but we urge them to carefully assess their needs before rushing into a decision to upgrade to a more expensive plan," Ms Brakey said.
"Less expensive 25 Mbps speed plans allow households to access most online applications, including high-definition streaming applications, with retailers generally recommending their 100 Mbps speed tiers for households of at least 5 or 6 occupants, or those that have special requirements."
Currently there are 19 broadband providers accessing NBN directly at all 121 points of interconnection (POIs), compared to 13 in the December 2021 quarter. The POIs are the physical locations where providers can connect to the NBN.
"This growing presence of broadband providers across NBN's points of interconnection means improved competition and greater choices for consumers in more areas," Ms Brakey said.
The quarterly average bandwidth that NBN supplied to consumers through retail providers increased by 1.6 per cent to 2.97 Mbps per user.
Further information, including time series data, is available on the ACCC website at NBN Wholesale Market Indicators Report.
Background
The ACCC's NBN Wholesale Market Indicators Report contains information on NBN Co's provision of wholesale services to retail service providers. It does not report on the services supplied by retail service providers to end users. Retail service information is available via the ACCC's Internet Activity record keeping rule report.
Retail service providers use NBN Co's wholesale access service to supply retail services to their own customers or, alternatively, to supply a wholesale service to another (usually smaller) retail service provider.
Most small retail service providers do not directly connect with NBN Co, instead reselling services that they buy from larger providers such as Telstra, TPG and Optus.
