Efforts by Australia's NBN Co - the state-owned company building the national broadband network - to improve take-up of higher-tier speed plans are paying off.
Statistics from competition regulator ACCC indicate that the portion of customers on 50Mbps speed plans has increased to 26%, up from 4.6% as of December.
The number of 50Mbps services being acquired from NBN Co via its retail service provider customers increased from 158,959 in the fourth quarter of last year to 989,360 in the first quarter of 2018.
“Nearly one million customers are now using a plan with 50Mbps speeds. This is a remarkable shift in just three months,” ACCC chairman Rod Sims said.
In December, NBN Co launched a new promotion offering temporary discounts for the price of 50Mbps access virtual circuits (AVC) and increasing the connectivity virtual circuit (CVC) per user by 50%.
Retailers have been passing on these discounts to customers, and while they are temporary, NBN Co has indicated that more permanent discounts are on the way.
“We are pleased to see retailers taking up the higher speed services and enabling their customers to shift to 50Mbps plans. This is good for consumers who can enjoy the benefits of higher speeds,” Sims said.
“However, we would expect that with more consumers on higher speed plans, retailers will continue to provision enough CVC to ensure a continuing good customer experience, particularly during the busy evening periods.”