1 edit | Why US broadband adoption rate is lower »www.ncta.com/DocumentBinary.aspx?id=578Broadband adoption rates in the U.S. reflect a number of economic, cultural and demographic characteristics that are unique to this country. First, more than 26 percent of U.S. households still do not own a computer. Second, it is estimated that more than 21 percent of U.S. households continue to rely on dial-up Internet access for basic email and limited browsing functionality, even though most of them have one or more high-speed Internet service options available to them. And while it may seem inexplicable, not every consumer yet sees the need to switch to broadband – a recent Pew Internet and American Life project survey reported that nearly 60 percent of these dial-up users said they are not interested in switching to broadband.
Of course, the groups who demand that the US have higher broadband penetration rates thinks that if the nanny gov't intervenes as they desire, these people would be given free PC's and be forced to switch to broadband from dial-up whether they want to or not.
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Zoder
join:2002-04-16
Miami, FL | Are there statistics anywhere for the percent of people who want broadband but have no access to it? |
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 pnh102Reptiles Are Cuddly And PrettyPremium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD | reply to fAcEtIOUs
said by fAcEtIOUs:Of course, the groups who demand that the US have higher broadband penetration rates thinks that if the nanny gov't intervenes as they desire, these people would be given free PC's and be forced to switch to broadband from dial-up whether they want to or not. Agreed... with each passing day, more of the people in the USA who could not get broadband will eventually have it available (especially with the rising popularity of 3G data services). Eventually, the market is going to be saturated and the only way that one company can grow is to take business from another company.
I also don't see any reason why the USA is somehow "harmed" because a sizable number of people here are not interested in purchasing broadband. It is their own free choice.
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Only SHATNER is Kirk. |
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Nuts
join:2006-04-27
Forest, OH | said by pnh102:Agreed... with each passing day, more of the people in the USA who could not get broadband will eventually have it available (especially with the rising popularity of 3G data services). Eventually, the market is going to be saturated and the only way that one company can grow is to take business from another company.
The problem with this is that the providers keep putting these new services in areas already served and not expanding to areas not served. Until they start moving into unserved areas, we will not see much upward movement in broadband penetration. I also don't see any reason why the USA is somehow "harmed" because a sizable number of people here are not interested in purchasing broadband. It is their own free choice.
Agree |
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pnh102Reptiles Are Cuddly And PrettyPremium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD | said by Nuts:The problem with this is that the providers keep putting these new services in areas already served and not expanding to areas not served. Until they start moving into unserved areas, we will not see much upward movement in broadband penetration. There are a lot of providers which have been doing this though. Earlier this decade, Comcast made a huge push to offer cable modem service to many parts of suburban Philadelphia which could not previously get any broadband. Eventually, FIOS followed them. I know this because I was living in that area at the time and I am sure that this wasn't the only area involved in such an expansion.
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Only SHATNER is Kirk. |
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 RR ConductorHappy 40th AmtrakPremium
join:2002-04-02
Redwood Valley, CA
kudos:1 | reply to pnh102
There's a HUGE difference between having it available and being able to afford it. We need a Broadband TVA or REA. |
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pnh102Reptiles Are Cuddly And PrettyPremium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD | said by RR Conductor:There's a HUGE difference between having it available and being able to afford it. We need a Broadband TVA or REA. Or if people want it that bad, they can get an extra job to pay for it too.
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Only SHATNER is Kirk. |
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 BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN | reply to fAcEtIOUs
said by fAcEtIOUs:» www.ncta.com/DocumentBinary.aspx?id=578Broadband adoption rates in the U.S. reflect a number of economic, cultural and demographic characteristics that are unique to this country. First, more than 26 percent of U.S. households still do not own a computer. Second, it is estimated that more than 21 percent of U.S. households continue to rely on dial-up Internet access for basic email and limited browsing functionality, even though most of them have one or more high-speed Internet service options available to them. And while it may seem inexplicable, not every consumer yet sees the need to switch to broadband – a recent Pew Internet and American Life project survey reported that nearly 60 percent of these dial-up users said they are not interested in switching to broadband.
Of course, the groups who demand that the US have higher broadband penetration rates thinks that if the nanny gov't intervenes as they desire, these people would be given free PC's and be forced to switch to broadband from dial-up whether they want to or not. First of all they give out specific numbers that say how many have dial-up and that don't want broadband, but then say MOST have access to broadband. How much is MOST? Not very accurate number. Is it 51% or 99% or somehwere inbetween?
21% is about 25 million households. Even if 80% have access ot broadband that means 5 million don't. If the 40% that DO live in an area that has broadband and that DO want broadband is the same % for those in the boonies that means 2 million households want broadband but do not have access to it. Not to mention there are another 8 million dial-up users that want broadband but choose not to get it for various reasons. Why companies ingore a $3-$5 billion yearly source of revenue is beyond me.
There are reasons why people on dial-up don't switch. That could be because of PRICE first of all. Also could be they have DirctTV and don't want to pay the extra $10-$15 a month cable companies charge for having intenet but not TV service.
Besides I know personally that where I live there are people that WANT broadband but can only get dial-up. So to assume that all those on dial-up don't wish to have broadband is ignorant. I have a friend that doesn't have ANY internet access because dial-up is the only option and it's not worth the cost to him to out up with slow speeds. So he rathe do without. He would however pay for broadband if they would only put it out where he lives.
Also that 60% that only want dial-up will continue to fall. Most of those are older people that will die soon and younger people want broadband. Not to mention the needs of the Internet demand broadband more and more.
For example say you're a fan of Spiderman and want to know about the new movie. Try going to that site on dial-up. It has 2 flash pages that load before you can do anything. Each one take me 6 seconds to load on my 10( that's TEN ) Mbps connection. Doing the math on dial-up that's a total of 37 minutes to load. Now you know that if this were 1999 it wouldn't be that way since most websites were much simpler. The days of a simple HTML page that was under 100k are long over. |
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 TopmounterSent By Grocery Clerks
join:2001-02-20
Evergreen, CO
1 edit | reply to Nuts
Double agree.
Forcing people to get broadband and giving them free computers is not the answer to the perceived "problem".
Of course broadband penetration is going to be lower in the US, the US is much larger and has a much more widely distributed population than most countries.
It seems like half the people posting here don't have an appreciation for not only just how big and how spread-out the US is, but how diverse the population is in this day and age.
I know this may come as a shock to people that post here, but not everyone wants or needs a freaking computer, much less a broadband connection to the Internet in their house to happily live their life. |
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PDXPLT
join:2003-12-04
Banks, OR | reply to Zoder
said by Zoder:Are there statistics anywhere for the percent of people who want broadband but have no access to it? NO! That's the #1 problem here!!
One would think that would be the most important statistic that the FCC would seek to determine. It would be the most telling indicator as to whether or not broadband deployment is "progressing in a timely manner", as required by the 1996 Telecomm Act. After all, if someone has BB available and doesn't want it, that's their decision, right?
But the issue is that the leadership at the FCC knows that the answer wouldn't be pretty. If they actually measured that number, they might be forced to do something, per the requirements of the Telecomm Act. And that is something the laissez faire ideologues at the FCC simply won't do. So they use bogus figures like the famous statistic "if one person in a zip code has broadband available, then everybody in that zip code has broadband available". Ideology is more important than reality. |
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| reply to pnh102
Obviously everyone can get just about anything in this world if they are willing to pay enough for it. That isn't much of an argument for anything.
Penetration rates are about service availability at a compelling price. I don't know that anyone has really solid data for this country but it looks like cable has much better availability than dsl. The last time burstein came out with dsl estimates they hadn't changed much from previous years. In other words it looks like dsl coverage has largely stagnated in the 70% range. Many states are in the 60-70% range. Dsl has introductory prices that are moving customers from dial-up. Dsl penetration is growing at a faster rate than cable. Cable is available to more people but still remains relatively expensive.
The long and the short of it is that cable is resisting lowering rates to those needed to rapidly accelerate penetration, though it has good availability, while the telcos have poor availability but good pricing that is drawing people from dial-up. |
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Nuts
join:2006-04-27
Forest, OH | reply to pnh102
But, you just made my point. FIOS followed cable modems into an area already severed. Was this area also already served by DSL also. |
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 morboComplete Your Transaction
join:2002-01-22
00000 | reply to fAcEtIOUs
said by fAcEtIOUs:Of course, the groups who demand that the US have higher broadband penetration rates thinks that if the nanny gov't intervenes as they desire, these people would be given free PC's and be forced to switch to broadband from dial-up whether they want to or not. and then there are folks like you, who thinks that if the gov't stays hands off, the market will magically work perfectly. no monopolies, no duolpolies, no abuse of power, etc. fuck the consumer. as long as corporations are allowed free and unrestrained growth potential. go free market! we're #1! U-S-A! U-S-A! |
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BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN | said by morbo:said by fAcEtIOUs:Of course, the groups who demand that the US have higher broadband penetration rates thinks that if the nanny gov't intervenes as they desire, these people would be given free PC's and be forced to switch to broadband from dial-up whether they want to or not. and then there are folks like you, who thinks that if the gov't stays hands off, the market will magically work perfectly. no monopolies, no duolpolies, no abuse of power, etc. fuck the consumer. as long as corporations are allowed free and unrestrained growth potential. go free market! we're #1! U-S-A! U-S-A! I'm all the free market system as long as there is an actual free market. Since this doesn't exist when it comes to TV or internet I don't see how government intervention is messing around with the "free market". |
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| reply to morbo
I think I read that book, the Jungle or something like that. It talked about working and living conditions in the early 20th century, the guilded age.
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Retaking our country one election at a time. |
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dynodbPremium,VIP
join:2004-04-21
Minneapolis, MN | reply to asdfdfdfdf
said by asdfdfdfdf :
Obviously everyone can get just about anything in this world if they are willing to pay enough for it. That isn't much of an argument for anything.
Penetration rates are about service availability at a compelling price. According to the linked article, 26% of households don't even have a computer. Of the 74% that do, some are only interested in the occasional e-mail to the grandkids, just use their work account during the day or otherwise just have no need or desire to get broadband.
Yes, significant numbers of people who want it either can't get it at all or at a price they're willing to pay, but with budget DSL packages out there that aren't much more expensive than dial-up and the rapid expansion of broadband availability in the past few years, it seems to me that many people who don't have it just don't want it. |
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hurfyPremium
join:2002-08-06
Spokane, WA | reply to Zoder
"nearly 60 percent of these dial-up users said they are not interested in switching to broadband"
He just gave it to you.
That would be the other 40 percent of the 21 percent of US households on dial-up. Do you have some other way to read that?
Or about 9.3 million households!
»www.census.gov/prod/1/pop/p25-1129.pdf shows about 111.1 million households est for 2007
So they have only deemed 20-something million people as unworthy. Only enough for a small coutry no biggie  |
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 batterupI Can Not Tell A Lie.Premium
join:2003-02-06
Netcong, NJ
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to fAcEtIOUs
said by fAcEtIOUs:Of course, the groups who demand that the US have higher broadband penetration rates thinks that if the nanny gov't intervenes as they desire, these people would be given free PC's and be forced to switch to broadband from dial-up whether they want to or not. One should be careful for what one wishes for, one may get it. They have free Wi-Fi in Boston with Net Nanny installed on the proxy, no pron for you. |
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