Broadband adoption passes halfway mark in U.S.

U.S. residential broadband penetration is expected to exceed 50 percent in 2007--and the U.K. isn't far behind. By the end of 2007, more than 60 million U.S. households will be connected--around 55 percent--according to market researcher Parks Associates. During 2006, broadband subscriptions grew by more than 20 percent in the U.S. and by the end of the year around 50 million households had fat pipes.

The U.K. isn't far behind, though, as around 49 percent of households have a broadband connection, according to Point Topic figures from the third quarter of 2006. In Europe there are still large discrepancies in broadband penetration rates that are exacerbating the digital divide. Residential broadband uptake varies from 73 percent in Iceland to 1.4 percent in Moldova. Worldwide, the country with the greatest residential broadband connectivity is South Korea. More than 88 percent of Korean households had a broadband connection by the third quarter of last year.

Tim Ferguson of Silicon.com reported from London.

[drewbyh]

Total crap

The FCC considers an entire area to have high speed access if one, that's 1, person in the zip code has high speed access. They are also counting people with cell phones that allow high speed access in the adoption numbers.

[thenet411]

Wrong

The FCC considers an area BROADBAND-CAPABLE as long as one person in a zip code has access to it. The FCC has nothing to do with the NUMBER OF PEOPLE THAT ACTUALLY SUBSCRIBE TO BROADBAND. Big difference.

Still, most of the "broadband" is 384Kbps down or less. Absolutely pitiful when compared to other countries. In reality, most of the "broadband" is glorified dialup that allows most people to download web pages and emails a little faster than they could with dialup. All well and good. What I would like to see is how many people are actually USING their broadband. Things like downloading movies and music (legally), gaming, and hosting their own services actually make use of the increased speed offered by higher speed services 1.5Mbps or above. I have seen people get 6Mbps DSL or 8Mbps cable and STILL only surf the web or download email. A complete waste of a lot of bandwidth.

[Des Alba]

Not likely - BB is way overpriced!

Only a small percentage can afford to get BB into their home. Most people will still opt for the cheaper dial-up service. The way to go would be for cities to provide for wireless access to everyone in range. The overall cost can be recovered through a very modest property tax, business tax, and sales tax, amounting to less than $1.00 per tax payer per year. Not far fetched at all considering most developed European nations already provide free internet access to all their residents. I recently spent 30 days in Holland and had no problem accessing from anywhere with my HP wireless laptop.

[Sparky672]

Cheaper Dial-up? That depends.

Quoting: "Only a small percentage can afford to get BB into their
home. Most people will still opt for the cheaper dial-up service."

AOL Dial-Up is still about $27.99/month - no contract

ATT is selling 3.0 MBps DSL for $24.99/month - no contract
(and 1.5 MBps is only $19.99/month)


DSL, Cable, Cellular Data, and Wifi still all have certain coverage
limitations.

Only 2-way Satellite and Dial-up can claim virtually 100%
coverage.

[David Arbogast]

Insane Liberal Ideas

Here we go again. Somebody always has to suggest that broadband be "Free" (as in, taxpayer subsidized). Explain to me, Des Alba... if broadband can be purchased for $24.99, and it typically provides enough bandwidth for 1 active person... How on Earth can we all have adequate bandwidth for $1.00 per person?

Not far fetched you say... but I disagree. What you want, is for poor people to pay nothing, and wealthy people to pay much more. Wealthy people can buy broadband for poor people now... but they don't. So, do-gooders, perhaps such as yourself, want to FORCE others to be generous in a way they don't aleady want to be.

$1 per taxpayer per year does NOT provide the bandwidth, infrastructure, and maintenance required for every person to have broadband. The idea is preposterous.

Quite frankly, I am completely, flat-out against additional taxpayer subsidized Internet connectivity. Why? Because we ALREADY have it. Just about EVERY school and library is wired with broadband for anybody who wants to use it. To top it off, I see no need for people to specifically have broadband, in their home. And given that wireless is more expensive, and has lousy penetration, it is even more ridiculous.

Wireless broadband is a LUXURY service. NOT a necessity by any stretch of the imagination. Taxpayer-funded Government organizations should NOT be in the business of distributing luxuries to low-income people. Ever. Period.

No, No, No. Wireless Broadband is NOT a necessity. If you REALLY want to subsidize necessities, you should start with Electricity, Phone, or Gas... at least you'd have a stronger argument, even though I STILL wouldn't agree. But no... in the end... this isn't about providing necessities to people who cannot afford them. This is about growing the government, socializing the economy, taxing the rich, and forcing your will upon others. It is a fantastic representation of overly-liberal philosophy.

[irm16]

Number of subscriptions, not access

This is a report about the number of subscriptions, not just access.

[anicat38]

In cities, perhaps...

..but broadband is still years away from my rural area.

[MikeOC80]

Details are wrong

To say that the UK is behind the U.S in broadband usage is
completely wrong.

According to UK's Office of National Statistics, more than 69% of
UK net users have broadband connections. And the majority of
this is 'proper' broadband, not just a jumped up dialup service,
we left that behind some time ago (I think you'd be hard pressed
to find a service offering less than 1Mb). And, in fact, dialup
services are given as a free service by a few phone companies.

To say that connection varies around Europe is a no-brainer, I
mean - duh! Yes, you have countries like Britain, France,
Germany, Iceland etc, all old power houses (perhaps not Iceland
- founded by Vikings though) with long established businesses
and trade networks, the fact that they'd be ahead of the newer
and old communist block states to join the EU, which Moldova
isn't one of, is obvious.

It took me less than thirty seconds to find these details using
google, the BBC and wikipedia, I know that the 50% mark is a
reasonably important milestone to hit and one worthy of a
report but if you're going to compare stats do some research
first.

[tanis143]

Read the report

They are not talking 49% of net users, they are talking about 49% of HOUSEHOLDS period. Thats where your stats are off.

[smitty080]

Brodband!? FIBEROPTICS!

I do not remeber what year it was but the US govt. gave millions of dollars in tax cuts to larg telephone companies in return the companies promised to have over 60% of all U.S. homes wired for fiberopitc internet service by 2009. fiberoptic service was also promised to be arround the price of curent brodband. Has any one's house been wired yet. A couple of small towns in the U.S. have took it apon them selfs to wire there community with fiberoptics in order to not let them fall behind. In Japan fiber optic service costs about the price of U.S. dial up services. (Roughly estimated) Brodband runs at about 4mbs while fiberoptic runs at arround 4000mbs. The U.S. is greatly falling behind in the internet service and the companies are only getting more money and the govt is willingly letting this happen.

[schubb]

1996 I think

The telecom act of 1996 is what did it if I recall. Do a google search for broadband scandal and you will find the information.

The push started before that, but 1996 was when the tax breaks kicked in. This bill is also what allowed all the media mega-corps to buy as many tv and radio stations as they want in every market.

[Tomcat Adam]

200 Billion.

That's how much they were given to lay down the fibre.

[rpvitiello]

Major metro areas have fiber to home

Verizon's FiOS service is Fiber optic wiring to homes. It is under rapid development and instillation in areas like NYC at least. It is there attempt to compete with companies like cable vision iO hybrid fiber optic and coaxial networks that provide 800+ digital TV channels, 30mbps cable service, and VoIP telephone service.

The Verizon system is designed to carry phone, data, and entertainment. The module they install in the house has its own UPS power back up to maintain phone service in the event of a power failure. The pricing is also competitive with there former DSL service.

I think it all depends on the market you live in, and who in your state has a contract to provide service. A good company like verizon or cablevision, or a crappy company like Comcast or SBC/AT&T

[fcekuahd]

Most of my bandwidth goes to downloading...

the latest security patches from Microsoft.

[jacomo]

What is Broadband ?

Most ref (comments and article) assume and address Broadband as below 1Mbps, which is at best what the CellCo Wireless Narrowband services are delivering consistently.

Broadband needs to be define at minimum as 2Mbps Plus, and really should be around 3-5Mbps per sub.
In addition it should also include a symmetrical type service since most serious users (other then email) use the upload.
This is what consumers are begining to expect of their providers at home and will soon demand for wireless.

Jacomo

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