Australians are downloading 10 times as much data as they were five years ago, as more people get online with faster internet speeds.
Countrywide downloads totalled 996 million gigabytes in the three months to June, according to new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
That's an increase of 50 per cent on 12 months ago, and a tenfold increase compared with the same period in 2009.
Downloads via mobile phones increased by 40 per cent in just six months to reach 38.7 million GB.
Yet the vast majority of downloads - some 97 per cent - continued to be done via fixed-line broadband connections.
The figures show more Australians are on the hunt for faster connections, with two thirds of broadband subscribers now signed on to plans with advertised speeds of at least eight megabits-per-second (Mbps).
At that speed, a 1GB movie downloads in about 16 minutes.
"The increase reflects the dominance of broadband, Australia's continuing appetite for the internet and particularly the swing towards higher download speeds," said ABS assistant director Lesley Martin.
NBN Co says 264,000 premises are now connected to the National Broadband Network, which promises speeds of 25-100 Mbps depending on the technology used.
Australia ranks 41st in the world on average download speeds, according to a recent study by internet company Akamai, which handles up to 30 per cent of the world's web traffic.
TOTAL DOWNLOADS (in millions of gigabytes)
Apr-Jun 2013: 657.2
Oct-Dec 2013: 860.9
Apr-Jun 2014: 996.2?
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