The 3.6 percent growth in the December 2020 quarter, which saw an additional 279,347 households and businesses connect to the NBN.

Nearly 5.5 million broadband connections, or 68 percent of all services acquired from NBN, are on higher speed tiers of 50Mbps and above, including about 16 percent of wholesale services acquired at speeds of 100Mbps or above.

“NBN Co’s new incentives to retail service providers, such as its Focus on Fast promotion, are welcome as many Australians now work and study from home at least some of the time. Customers should consider their usage and needs, and explore whether these promotions offer them a better deal,” ACCC Chair Rod Sims said.

Retail service providers acquired slightly less bandwidth in the December quarter which led to total Connectivity Virtual Circuit (CVC) per user falling marginally from 2.59Mbps to 2.44Mbps.

Sims states, “NBN’s temporary COVID-19 CVC boost offer has expired, so it’s important that retail service providers provide sufficient CVC capacity for consumers to continue to receive the speeds they are paying for, particularly during periods of high demand.”

Wholesale market shares remained stable in the December quarter. While Telstra’s share of services acquired from NBN fell slightly to 45.5 percent, the market shares of the other large retail service providers were largely unchanged.

Among the smaller retail service providers, Aussie Broadband had increased its market share to 4.2 percent in the December quarter, up from 3.9 percent in the previous quarter. Other small retail service providers accounted for the remaining share of 3.3 percent.

Retail service providers also proceeded to expand their reach to more NBN points of interconnection. There were at least 11 retail service providers connected at all of the 121 NBN points of interconnection at the end of the December quarter, up from the 9 reported at the end of September. At least 12 different providers were linking at 112 of the points of interconnection.