Name it the ‘Netflix impact’: Australians’ starvation for knowledge skyrocketed within the final yr as on-line video streaming took the nation by storm.
Within the three months to December 2015 we chewed via a document 1.7 exabytes of knowledge – or 1.7 million terabytes.
That is 50 per cent greater than in the identical interval in 2014 – a report spike of greater than half an exabyte. We solely handed an exabyte value of downloads for the primary time in a 3-month interval in 2014, in response to the Australian Bureau of Statistics knowledge.
If you cannot fathom how huge that’s, think about this: throughout Telstra’s free knowledge day on Sunday, a single buyer ploughed via 1TB of knowledge – sufficient to obtain 14 seasons of Mythbusters; 24 seasons of The Simpsons; the complete Wikipedia database; Microsoft software program packages; Xbox recreation updates; Spotify playlists and far, far more.
Now multiply that by 1.7 million.
The huge spike in knowledge utilization coincides with the arrival new streaming video on demand (SVOD) providers in Australia in 2015, together with worldwide big Netflix and native gamers Stan and Presto.
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About 2.7 million Australians at the moment are estimated to watch Netflix, and finally rely, quantity-two participant Stan – which is joint owned by Fairfax Media and Channel 9 – had greater than seven hundred,000 subscribers.
Australians are more and more choosing these providers – in addition to free-to-air catch-up TV providers reminiscent of ABC’s iView – over conventional broadcast free-to-air and pay TV viewing, which do not require an web connection.
Analysis agency Ovum predicts there can be greater than four.7 million SVOD subscribers in Australia by 2019.
The rise in Australians’ knowledge consumption is much more staggering when seen towards our plateauing progress in web subscriptions.
Within the 4 years to December 2011, the variety of Australian web subscriptions grew from round 7 million to 12 million, the ABS knowledge present. Within the 4 years since, nevertheless, just one million extra subscriptions have been added – however the quantity every subscription is downloading has greater than quadrupled.
The typical particular person web plan – whether or not it’s a hard and fast-line residence connection, cell phone knowledge plan, or one other sort of connection – consumed 44GB of knowledge downloads per thirty days on the finish of 2015, up from 10GB in 2011. In 2014, earlier than the streaming providers took off, we have been solely downloading 30GB a month.
The continued rollout of the nationwide broadband community, bringing quick broadband web connections to extra Australians, has additionally possible factored within the progress in downloads.
Virtually all Australian web connections – ninety nine per cent – at the moment are broadband.
Nevertheless underneath the multi-know-how combine NBN, the standard and velocity of a connection differs relying on whether or not a family’s connection is full fibre, a mixture of fibre and copper, hybrid-fibre coaxial cable, fastened wi-fi or satellite tv for pc broadband.
Fibre-to-the-premises connections doubled within the yr to December 31 to 645,000 subscribers, the ABS knowledge present. Cellular wi-fi and cable connections grew incrementally, whereas DSL connections fell by sixty nine,000.
NBN chief know-how officer Dennis Steiger stated a “vital improve in utilization” over the NBN community confirmed the extra bandwidth Australians have, the extra content material they need to eat.
“The findings reveal our nation has properly and really embraced the worldwide streaming revolution as providers akin to Netflix, Stan and Presto have redefined the best way we view and eat content material,” Mr Steiger stated.