The re-reporting of statistics

The ACCC for some reason is not particularly quick at getting its reports on telecommunications out.

Last week it announced that its 2009-10 Telecommunications reports had been tabled in the Parliament.

Why the ACCC needs fifteen months from the end of the year to get this out hasn't been explained. They do have to do some work on price indices using data they can only obtain at 30 June, but it seems a very long time. Can you imagine running a business with data that is over a year old?

But the stunning part is the coverage. The ACCC's release said;

Subscription numbers for both fixed and mobile services suggest that while mobile take-up continues to grow, this is not necessarily at the cost of fixed line services. ... Fixed broadband remains the dominant technology for downloading data, accounting for 91 per cent of data volumes.

This download information was the bit reported by the SMH, ZDnet and iTWire.

However, the ACCC report is not new data - it is simply repeating and interpreting ABS data. Furthermore they are reporting only the June 2010 data while the ABS website released December data in April and advises the June 2011 data will be released in two days time - September 28.

For the record the per service download data and the total of fixed vs wireless broadband is shown in the chart below.

This demonstrates the core point that while wireless is popular it is mostly as an auxilliary not main service.

I look forward to updating the graph on Wednesday!!!!!


Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est