As COVID-19 spreads its footprint in Australia, social-distancing and quarantine measures are becoming the norm. This includes a large number of organisations directing their employees to Work From Home (WFH) where possible, and educational institutes moving to online learning, increasing the load on residential broadband networks. In this report we look at how telcos are stepping up to this challenge, discuss consumers’ broadband requirements for WFH based on our Australian consumer survey and look at short- and long-term implications of COVID-19 for the fixed broadband.

Contents

Introduction

Telcos taking initiatives to address new broadband needs

Work from home set to increase rapidly

Telcos resilient in short-term but long-term impact uncertain

Other threats and downsides

Takeaways

List of charts/tables

Figure 1. Aussie broadband CVC graph and network traffic in Parramatta region on 29^th March 2020. Even after offering more data and higher speeds, the network usage is within CVC limit

Figure 2. With the recent events surrounding Coronavirus, are you expecting to work from home and/or increase your number of days working from home?

Figure 3. Do you feel your home broadband service is suitable for working from home?

Figure 4. Do you plan to upgrade your home broadband service to better support your work from home?

Figure 5. What is the main reason you are thinking about changing your home broadband provider?