The ACCC said NBN residential connections rose by 8.5% in the March quarter, up from 4.8 million at the end of December 2018.
More than three million were on services of 50Mbps or above, indicating that the take-up of these plans had grown substantially following the introduction of discount offers and wholesale bundled products by NBN Co.
But there were still a million consumers on the entry-level 12Mbps speed at the end of March, though this fell by 200,000 in the previous six months.
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“We would be concerned if the options to acquire entry-level plans declined, either through availability or higher prices. Indeed, we continue to have concerns about the impact of NBN pricing changes on affordability of entry level plans for those consumers who only require a basic service.”
Connectivity Virtual Circuit, the NBN bandwidth acquired by retail service providers to provide data to their customers, increased slightly on a per user basis during the quarter, from 1.65Mbps to 1.67Mbps.
RSPs’ market shares remained mostly stable during the December quarter, with smaller retailers slightly increasing their collective share from 6.6% to 6.8% – an increase of about 38,700 services.
There were at least seven access seeker groups acquiring NBN services directly from NBN Co at each of the 121 points of interconnect and at least eight access seeker groups at 118 of the PoIs.
“NBN access seekers are continuing to directly connect to the NBN at more POIs, including in regional areas,” Sims said.
Graphic: courtesy ACCC