Take-up of higher tier nbn plans increasing

Take-up of nbn 50 Mbps plans has surged since nbn co introduced the discount and wholesale bundled products it had developed to stimulate adoption, according to the ACCC.

The regulator’s latest quarterly Wholesale Market Indicators report finds that more than 3 million nbn subscribers — representing 58.4% of the total — are now on services of 50 Mbps or above.

The overwhelming majority of these connections (2.6 million) are on 50 Mbps plans, which is a substantial increase compared to the mere 159,000 50 Mbps subscribers in December 2017. There are, meanwhile, nearly 412,000 50 Mbps subscribers.

Meanwhile, the number of 25 Mbps subscribers has decreased significantly — from 1.88 million to 1.16 million — over the same period, while customers on the base 12 Mbps plan fell more modestly from 1.02 million to 998,000.

Total nbn subscribers reached 5.2 million as of the end of March, up 8.5% from the preceding quarter.

ACCC Chair Rod Sims commented that lower speed plans still represent a significant proportion of total subscribers and are therefore an important part of the market.

“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,” he said.

The report also finds that connectivity virtual circuit bandwidth — the nbn bandwidth acquired by retail service providers for their customers — increased to 1.67 Mbps per user, up from 1.65 Mbps in Q4.

The competitive landscape shifted little during the quarter, but smaller providers — which typically resell nbn services acquired from other nbn service providers — did slightly increase their collective share of the market to 6.8% from 6.6%.

Image courtesy NBN Co.

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