Displaying items by tag: Households

GUEST OPINION: New South Wales has legislated ambitious climate targets to reach net zero by 2050, with interim goals to cut emissions by 50 per cent by 2030 and 70 per cent by 2035. However, based on current policy settings, New South Wales is projected to miss all of these targets—2030, 2035, and 2050.

Australia’s competition watchdog, the ACCC, is urging Australian households to shop around for their NBN broadband plans and check for any offers that represent better value for them, following NBN Co notifying retailers of changes to the wholesale prices that it will charge them from next month.

The ACCC has urged households and small businesses to contact their energy company and ask if a cheaper electricity plan is available, in light of recent price increases above the regulated safety net for some customers.

Switching providers becomes more prevalent, as do free trials and ad-supported plans.

Video on Demand (VoD) enabled households that have access to at least one video streaming service in Australia increased to 6.24 million, up 114k, quarter on quarter, representing 62.6% of households, according to a new Entertainment on Demand study by evidence-based insights and consulting company Kantar.

Australia’s competition watchdog, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), has issued an alert about potentially deadly solar batteries, and warning consumers to be aware that scammers may use news about a recall to elicit personal information or money from them.

Almost 8.6 million residential broadband services are now on the NBN and 58% are on high speed services of 50 Mbps, with an additional 15% of customers on speeds of over 50 Mbps, the ACCC’s latest NBN Wholesale Market Indicators Report reveals.

Major falls in wholesale electricity costs and new laws requiring retailers to pass on cuts are likely to result in lower electricity bills in 2021, despite residential consumption rising by 10% and household bills increasing by 7% in 2020, according to competition regulator the ACCC.

Australia’s competition watchdog the ACCC has called for stronger measures to be taken to keep high gas prices in check, saying there is a need to ensure businesses and households are not paying more for gas than would be expected in a well-functioning market.

The decision by National Broadband Network operator, NBN Co to extend its Education Assistance offer until 15 January 2021, has earned the praise of communications consumers peak body ACCAN, which says the targeted offer from the company waives the wholesale costs for many services on the 25/5 Mbps speed tier - and encourages telcos to offer free or heavily discounted NBN plans to low-income households with school-aged children.

A blockchain solar energy trading trial that lets households set their own electricity prices has found the technology is technically feasible, viewed positively by participants and can lead to localised energy autonomy - and provide a big boost for peer-to-peer systems globally, according to Western Australian headquartered blockchain cryptocurrency and energy trading platform provider Power Ledger.

NBN Co, the operators of the National Broadband Network, is claiming an earlier than planned activation of connections to the network for more than seven million homes and businesses across Australia.

The competition watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has granted new interim authorisation for an expanded range of measures allowing participants in the gas and electricity markets to work together to help safeguard energy supply during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Australian Government says it has set reasonable expectations of energy companies to protect householders and small business customers during the COVID-19 pandemic, and will closely monitor retailer and network compliance with measures put in place by the Australian Energy Regulator (AER).

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has announced $2.7 million in funding for digital energy technology company Wattwatchers to develop a consumer-facing energy data hub - ‘My Energy Marketplace’ - that will give greater visibility over household energy use.

There is a continuing decline in household landline telephones, according to a new report from the telecommunications regulator ACMA revealing that for the first time more than half of Australian adults rely solely on their mobile for making and receiving voice calls at home.

NBN Co’s flagging of proposed lower wholesaler pricing for some broadband network entry level product bundles is good news for “budget conscious households” who are now likely to have better options in terms of connecting to the NBN, according to Communications Minister Paul Fletcher.

The Australian Internet of Things at home (IoT@Home) market grew 57% during the past 12 months to $1.1 billion in 2018 and is forecast to reach $5.3 billion by 2023, according to new research.

Thousands of New Zealand households are being roped in to help the country’s competition enforcement agency, The Commerce Commission, monitor and improve broadband performance.

Over one million (45%) Australian households who have connected to the national broadband network experienced issues when transitioning across to the service, according to a newly published research report.

The convenience of robots will trump compromise, says Juniper Research, with AI improving slowly so today’s 1 robot in 25 households becomes 1 in 10 by decade’s end.