Just released on December 18, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates during 2007/08, an additional 800,000 Australian households were signed up for Broadband Internet, according to figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

As of June 30 2008 the total Broadband connections were at 4.3 million (52% of all households), an increase of 22% on last years total.

The Australian Capital Territory has the highest proportion of Broadband connections, at 68% of households while Tasmania (39%) and South Australia (42%) were the lowest. Other states ranged from 51 to 55%.

Three-quarters (6.2 million) of Australian households have access to a computer, and 5.5 million of these have Internet access. This is more than a five-fold increase in the number of household Internet connections over the last ten years.

Socio-economic characteristics of households continue to influence the rate of computer, Internet and Broadband connections across Australia. For example, in relation to Broadband access:

• Metropolitan areas had considerably higher proportion of Broadband connections (57%) than other areas (43%).
• Households with children under 15 had higher Broadband access (67%) compared to households without (46%).
• Those households with an income of $120,000 had substantially higher rates of access (81%) than household’s incomes of less than $40,000 (38%).

The ABS publication also provided some information on time spent by Australians using information technology, for work or leisure purposes. During 2006, the average time spent by persons aged 15 years and over who used the Internet was just over one hour per day (excluding Internet use during work hours).

6% of employed adults had an agreement with their employer to access their computer systems via a modem so that they could work from home. These agreements were more prevalent amongst full-time workers, those employed in the public sector and those in a household with children under the age of 15.

Further details are available in Household Use of Information Technology, Australia 2007-08 (cat. no. 8146.0) available for free download from the ABS website <www.abs.gov.au>