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| 7:17pm EDT, Thu Sep 2 |
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Monthly Broadband Cost Jumps to $39
By:
The Online Reporter
Publish Date: June 19, 2009
Complete articles are posted three weeks after they have been sent to subscribers. To request a copy of the current edition, e-mail paperboy@riderresearch.com .
| - Economic Troubles Not ‘Greatly’ Impacting Broadband
- US Rural Broadband Penetration Increases to 46%
- Dial-up Is Near Death
The average monthly cost of broadband jumped from $34.50 in 2008 to $39 in
2009, according to the latest report from Pew Internet & American Life
Project. The probable cause is customers upgrading to faster plans that cost
more. We don’t recall any service increasing rates on existing plans. The
impact of pricing for fiber, hybrid fiber and DOCSIS 3.0 is beginning to
show, bringing broad smiles to the phone and cable TV operators.
Average Broadband Costs for Last 5 Years
The report also said Americans in rural areas are subscribing to broadband at
a faster rate than those in urban areas but still trail in broadband
penetration.
Also notable that dial-up usage has declined dramatically. Still, one-third
of dial-up users are in rural areas, many of which do not have any broadband
service.
Other numbers in the Pew report:
- Broadband penetration in rural areas increased from 38% in 2008 to 46%
this year, up from 25% in 2006.
- There’s a 20% gap between rural and urban broadband penetration, the same
as in 2006, 2007 and 2008.
Who’s Most/Least Likely to Have Broadband
- Most groups that lagged in adopting broadband in the past made significant
progress in the last year. For instance, last year only 42% of those
households with $20,000 to $30,000 in annual income had broadband. Pew found
that’s now 53%.
Broadband Access by Demographics
- People with incomes over $75,000 a year, those with a college degree,
those with a minor child in the household and those employed full time were
more likely to have home broadband. Having low levels of education, being of
older age, being African-American and living in rural America all were traits
that significantly reduced the likelihood people would adopt broadband,
according to the report.
- African-American residences had a third consecutive year of slow growth in
broadband adoption — 46%, up from 43% in 2008 and 40% in 2007.
- Current economic troubles are not greatly affecting Americans’ use of
broadband. “Broadband adoption appears to have been largely immune to the
effects of the current economic recession,” according to the report. Pew
found that instead of giving up broadband, Americans are scaling back their
use of cable television service or canceling cell phone plans.
- More than half of all Americans believe that broadband connections are
“very important” in at least one aspect of their lives, especially in
connecting with civic and community life. Roughly a third of those with home
broadband connections find the Internet “very important” for keeping up with
their community, communicating with health care providers, or contributing to
their area’s economic vitality.
- Rural residents are much more likely to have a telco’s DSL service instead
of broadband from a cable TV service. About half of those in rural
communities with broadband use DSL compared to 31% in urban areas. Only 28%
of rural residents got their broadband from a cable TV operator compared to
43% in urban areas.
- Only 12% of home broadband users live in rural America. However, 32% of
home dial-up users live in rural communities.
- The number of Americans using dial-up is declining rapidly. In 2002, Pew
found that 38% of all Americans had dial-up. By 2009, this rate had shrunk to
7%.
- Some 17% of the adults who use dial-up or don’t have a home Internet
connection at all say that broadband service is not available to them. This
group is disproportionately rural and remains unchanged from a year ago.
Pew surveyed 2,253 Americans, including 561 people with cell phone numbers. |
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