Mobile communications and Internet in Australia

Internet speed for cell phones and fixed network

With an average download speed of 135.31 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, Australia ranks 48th in an international comparison. The upload rate of only 33.91 Mbit/second was significantly lower (92nd place).
In mobile internet, i.e., on tablets and smartphones, Australia comes 33rd with a download speed of 128.84 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 12 Mbit was only enough for 79th place.

The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in October 2025 from 156 countries.

Mobile phone rates in Australia

Every year, the International Telecommunication Union calculates for many countries what a mobile phone contract costs to use. A monthly budget averaging US$ 25.50 was calculated Australia in 2025. Compared to the previous year, this amount has risen by 6 percent.

The ITU refers to the costs for monthly use and includes 140 telephony minutes, 20 text messages and a data transfer of 5 GB. The transfer speed should be the minimum of a 3G connection, i.e. at least UMTS, which is already outdated in many parts of the world. 5 GBytes doesn't sound like much to us. However, in a global comparison, this is already a very high consumption. If you don't take a fixed amount in US dollars, but convert it to economic output per inhabitant, a user in Australia spends 0.49% of their income on mobile telephony. Worldwide, this rate is around 4.7 percent.

In the USA, the monthly cost was around $47.40.

Network coverage with 5G

In 2024, network coverage with the 5G standard was already at 89% of all inhabitants. The proportion of the population with at least 4G mobile Internet access was 89.0%. The 4G network standard includes both LTE and WiMAX.

The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100 percent mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.

Access to the internet in Australia from 1990 - 2024

Broadband internet in Australia 2001 - 2024

The expansion of broadband internet in Australia is roughly on a par with the USA. Around 33 percent of all residents have access to the internet. There are around ten million Internet connections nationwide that are at least faster than the former ISDN (more than 256 kbit/s). All fixed connections via DSL, cable or satellite were counted here, but not those connected to the internet via mobile communications. This would be around 36 subscriptions per hundred inhabitants, although multiple use already occurs because there is usually more than one person living in a household and people usually use another Internet connection at work.

The increasing prevalence of cell phones and the simultaneous decline in landline phones clearly indicate a change in Australia. While the number of landlines has fallen significantly in recent years, the spread of cell phones has risen to 111 cell phone subscriptions per 100 people at last count. Such a clear shift does not occur in all countries, but the trend points in the same direction internationally.

The largest telecommunications provider in Australia is Telstrafrom Melbourne. In 2025, the stock market value reached 32.64 billion dollars. The number of employees was 33,761. With a profit of 1.11 billion U.S. dollars, it achieved a total turnover of 15.24 billion dollars.

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