The examination of communications infrastructure and service take-up undertaken in this report is intended to provide an overview of infrastructure and service availability across Australia in residential and small business retail markets.The Communications Infrastructure and Services Availability Report 2006-07 is a joint report issued by ACMA and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). The examination of infrastructure and service take-up undertaken in this report is intended to provide an overview of infrastructure and service availability across Australia in residential and small business retail markets. As the ACCC?s reporting series: Telecommunications Competitive Safeguards and the Changes in the Prices Paid for Telecommunications Services considers the issue of pricing, this is not analysed in this report.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report provides an overview of the state of communications infrastructure and service availability in Australia. The report identifies 19 internet service providers (ISPs) with their own network Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers (DSLAMs) providing services to end-users, up from nine ISPs identified in 2004?05. These deployments are primarily driven by ISPs seeking to differentiate their services from the resale of Telstra Wholesale services. The scope and scale of these deployments is creating infrastructure competition and new wholesale opportunities outside of Telstra Wholesale?s provision of internet services. Many of the ISPs identified in ACMA?s Communications Services Availability in Australia 2005?06 report continue to expand the coverage of their networks.

There has been growth in the number of ADSL-enabled exchanges across Australia, with 323 additional exchanges enabled between 30 June 2006 and 31 January 2007. Increased availability of ADSL2+ services has emerged in non-metropolitan areas, with 88 non-metropolitan exchanges identified in January 2007 compared with 22 in June 2006. Network deployments are helping to provide greater bandwidth to Australian broadband users, with many ISPs deploying ADSL2+ broadband services technically capable of delivering up to 24 megabits per second (Mbit/s) to end users.

Wireless broadband services continue to play an important role in providing broadband services to Australian consumers, with 204 companies providing wireless services in Australia, and more than half of these companies providing services to regional areas.

There are 6.6 million internet subscribers in Australia?3.9 million using broadband and 2.7 million dial-up subscribers. The report notes the actions of third generation (3G) mobile carriers to upgrade the bandwidth capabilities of their networks, with each mobile carrier now having implemented the high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) protocol to provide improved mobile data services.

In the fixed voice market, this report identifies 369 voice telephony service providers operating in Australia, with 166 companies offering services over the public switched telecommunications network (PSTN), 242 companies offering voice over internet protocol (VoIP) services, and 74 companies providing both PSTN and VoIP services. Around 18 per cent of ISPs are offering VoIP services as part of bundled broadband service offers. Appendix A contains a description of telecommunications local access networks.