Broadband Subscriber Growth Slows 'Only' 9.3 million new broadband subscribers in 2005 Sunday Oct 23 2005 10:36 EDT A recent study by Kagan Research ( Indystar.com) shows that broadband subscriber growth has started to slow during 2005. The research firm forecasts that there will be 9.3 million net new broadband subscribers in 2005, which is down from the 9.5 million in 2004. They expect that figure to drop off to 8.1 million net new users during 2006 with continued decreases thereafter. Kagan Research estimates 45.2 million total broadband subscribers by the end of 2005, and 29.6 million dial-up users. |
zipjay join:2003-03-11 South Williamson, KY |
zipjay
Member
2005-Oct-23 10:17 am
.everyone that wanted it already has it and everyone else is either too poor or too old to care | |
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Re: .Or not able to get it which i guarantee is the #1 reason!Like me. | |
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Re: .said by Hipjones:Or not able to get it which i guarantee is the #1 reason!Like me. Same here. Thus is the country we live in... | |
| | | | wilbilt Pronto Resurrected Premium Member join:2004-01-11 Oroville, CA |
wilbilt
Premium Member
2005-Oct-23 8:12 pm
Re: .said by Josh7289:said by Hipjones:Or not able to get it which i guarantee is the #1 reason!Like me. Same here. Thus is the country we live in... Absolutely. Keep the blinders on like the FCC and claim that 99% of the country is covered... I don't have broadband either, and trust me, it's not because I'm too cheap or don't care. | |
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fsfko
Anon
2005-Oct-24 3:24 pm
Re: .you don't have broadband but you read and post on BROADBAND reports?!? a little too much time I guess | |
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hamandegg
Anon
2005-Oct-23 10:33 am
But Dialup is no longer usable?This summer on vacation, I needed to use my father-in-laws PC. He only has dialup, I found it nearly unusable, needed to download latest Windows, anti-virus updates. It was just totally painful. | |
| | epluribus5 Premium Member join:2000-11-29 Phoenix, AZ |
Re: But Dialup is no longer usable?Long, tedious, maybe--probably. But don't many sites still provide text vs html pages? Text pages on dialup are actually fairly speedy, at least for general use. | |
| | | fiberguy2My views are my own. Premium Member join:2005-05-20 |
Re: But Dialup is no longer usable?Very few do any more.
Most people look at thier site stats and build accordingly. If they are meeting their intended goals based on their current, heavy, larger sites, why go through the itme and expense to build yet another version?
Besides, there isn't a small-text version of a virus patch or a windows update 'file' download. | |
| | | | epluribus5 Premium Member join:2000-11-29 Phoenix, AZ |
Re: But Dialup is no longer usable?Did I just get jumped? With all the fiber that's out there, why can't everyone have gobs of bandwidth? Admittedly that's a naive question, and I realize demand has to catch up with capacity -- but having said that, if demand is actually dropping, could it be that there is market satiation for those that can get 'reasonable' hi-speed. Too bad the phone companies in the 50s built a central-office topology that doesn't quite fit the needs of any of us who are >12,000 or 13,000ft from the central telco. If the phone companies (here it would be Qwest) are *actually* building out satellite stations, fine, I'm all for DSL, even ADSL. But what Qwest has been doing is saturating adspace with unrealizable promises of 3/4MBits where all they can currently deliver is 1.5MBits. | |
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Jovi Premium Member join:2000-02-24 Mount Joy, PA |
Jovi
Premium Member
2005-Oct-23 10:55 am
hmmmI wonder if they tally in people that switch from one broadband provider to another as new? As the broadband race heats up in certain areas(like northern Virginia) people will be switching to the faster, more reliable or lower priced service. | |
| | SteveI know your IP address
join:2001-03-10 Tustin, CA |
Steve
2005-Oct-23 2:18 pm
Re: hmmmsaid by Jovi:I wonder if they tally in people that switch from one broadband provider to another as new? said by the article :
there will be 9.3 million net new broadband subscribers I think "net" pretty much covers it | |
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·Consolidated Com.. ·Republic Wireless ·Hollis Hosting
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PerspectiveTo put those numbers in perspective the US has about 110 million households. So in a few short years almost half of US households have embraced broadband. Seems like pretty rapid adoption to me. Remember most people were not even aware of the Internet 10 years ago.
It would be interesting to evaluate adoption numbers based on broadband availability. How many folks have remained on dialup because they do not see enough advantage in broadband vs those who would like broadband but it is not available.
I do agree that for anything other then email dialup is extremely painful and will only becomes more so as more and more web sites are optimized for high speed end user connection. I used to maintain a backup dialup account in case my DSL service went down. Even purchased a router that automatically fell back to dialup when DSL failed. I canceled dialup a year ago because being on dialup was so painfully slow.
/Tom
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| | TransmasterDon't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus join:2001-06-20 Cheyenne, WY |
Re: PerspectiveI wonder how much of an impact all of the hurricanes have had on this number. If you are rebuilding a house the last thing on your mind is getting a broadband connection, even if you had a place for it to go.
On the other hand I can see an opportunity for WiFi services. A smart person could setup such a system and make it able to handle anything short of being hit with a atom bomb. A person rebuilding would find it nice to be able to get out a lap top and be able to connect for basic communications. | |
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Fatal Vector
Anon
2005-Oct-23 1:15 pm
Re: Perspective Only trouble with this concept is that if you loose power, so does the provider and it may not be back up, let alone any other damage done. | |
| | | | TransmasterDon't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus join:2001-06-20 Cheyenne, WY |
Re: PerspectiveOf course the bullet proof WiFi would have back up power and a backup satillite connection if the land lines go away. We are not talking about gaming here but communications. Of course as soon as you started to make money with something like this the big boys would come along and put you out of business, of course you might get lucky and they buy you out first. | |
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| BorednessSo bored... Premium Member join:2005-07-07 Fresno, CA |
to tschmidt
It is nor fair that a lot of people have a faster broadband connection than I do and it's not fair that I have a faster connection than a lot of people. The fastest ADSL I can get is 768/384 and I want a whole lot more than that SBC! I guess I'm being a little greedy here. Fast broadband deployment in this country and many others just blows! I want my 30/5mbit uncapped fios connection today somebody please! | |
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Time to hit the Rural areas?I bet that number would shoot way up if they started getting broadband out to rural areas. | |
| | FFH5 Premium Member join:2002-03-03 Tavistock NJ |
FFH5
Premium Member
2005-Oct-23 3:21 pm
Re: Time to hit the Rural areas?said by MousePM:I bet that number would shoot way up if they started getting broadband out to rural areas. I don't think so. See this link: » www.ers.usda.gov/briefin ··· lUrbCon/According to 2000 US Census only about 5.2 million out of 281 million US residents live in rural areas(codes 8 and 9). Providing broadband access to rural areas will do little to speed broadband growth. Even if you want to consider codes 6 and 7 as somewhat rural, the numbers are still only 29 million(codes 6,7,8,9) out of 281 million(10%). There is a lot of talk here about bringing broadband to rural areas. But they are of little importance in broadband growth. | |
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Re: Time to hit the Rural areas?The problem with that thinking is that areas like 4 and 5 that are unserved or underserved because they are considered "rural" or unprofitable due to a low population density. The overall population doesn't mean jack if there's only 4-5 people per square mile. Around here it doesn't anyway. | |
| | | wilbilt Pronto Resurrected Premium Member join:2004-01-11 Oroville, CA |
to FFH5
said by FFH5:See this link: » www.ers.usda.gov/briefin ··· lUrbCon/According to 2000 US Census only about 5.2 million out of 281 million US residents live in rural areas(codes 8 and 9). Providing broadband access to rural areas will do little to speed broadband growth. Even if you want to consider codes 6 and 7 as somewhat rural, the numbers are still only 29 million(codes 6,7,8,9) out of 281 million(10%). There is a lot of talk here about bringing broadband to rural areas. But they are of little importance in broadband growth. I can see how those numbers make sense from a "growth" point of view. Code 5 should be included as well, as plenty of counties fitting those criteria have lots of residents beyond the reach of wired broadband. Of course, that 2000 census data is half a decade old... What needs to be understood is that there is a demand that is not being served. That fact needs to be made public, with real numbers of unserved subscribers, and the areas they live in. I think that many people would be surprised at the number of unserved would-be subscribers, even in so-called "metro" areas. The FCC's criteria for "coverage" qualification are ludicrous. They consider a Zipcode "covered" if there is only one subscriber in that ZIP, and they proudly proclaim that "99% of ZIPs are "covered". What a load of BS. We need to obtain some real numbers for unserved areas, and put an end to ignorant comments like "everyone else is too cheap or doesn't care". If it turns out that in reality, only 40% of the country is covered, what does that say for the potential for "growth"? If a county has 30,000 residents, but only 5,000 can get broadband, and 90% of those 5,000 are subscribers, would that be considered a growth market? Or would it be reported that the county is "covered...let's move on"? | |
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| RR99iFINALLY, Got Broadband join:2003-03-18 Anderson, IN |
to MousePM
I'm one of those in a rural area. I had cable internet before I moved. I would love to get broadband where I live. Maybe FIOS will one day enter my world. I know one thing for sure, the numbers won't go up too much. I see fiber already running down my state road. My CO is located 18,200 feet in small town, Perkinsville, IN. When mother and me went out yesterday. We saw a empty field that was being full of dirt. They maybe being a neighborhood there. Dirt is being built up by the state road. I have row of houses all the way down my road, to the CO. Please, Verzion, GIVE ME FIBER!:) | |
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deploymentdata
Anon
2005-Oct-23 3:15 pm
Keeping up with the cablecosThe telcos have been lackluster in their commitment to deployments until the last 2 years, and many are not communitted to fiber at the "forefront of the company infrastructure". These and other reasons are why there are not more subscribers to broadband, sometimes its just not worth getting more subscribers, for various resons, and there is no real "right" to broaband either.. but eventually the same movement to get schools and non-profitables wired whether it was dialup or not. Now, the next push should be for universal broadband access (wired) with fiber. IE, 10megbits or higher as the starting point (symmetric) It's really time to make 10megabit ethernet ports obsolete, hehe, just as people are learning (the HARD way) that gasoline must become obsolete in a newborn child's lifetime today! Lets hope it doesn't take the path of most resistence, and delay!! | |
| | wilbilt Pronto Resurrected Premium Member join:2004-01-11 Oroville, CA |
wilbilt
Premium Member
2005-Oct-23 10:36 pm
Re: Keeping up with the cablecossaid by deploymentdata :
sometimes its just not worth getting more subscribers, for various resons, and there is no real "right" to broaband either.. but eventually the same movement to get schools and non-profitables wired whether it was dialup or not. Now, the next push should be for universal broadband access (wired) with fiber. Agreed. While broadband access is not a "right", I can see the day coming when it will be a necessity. Having a telephone or transportation are not rights, either, but the majority of people in this country would be hard-pressed to do without them. As the federal, state and local governments become more wired, more and more resources are being made available online. In the case of local entities such as school districts, much of their reporting is now required to be submiited online, and the day that you and I have to file our taxes, register our vehicles, etc. online is not far off. | |
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oliphantI Have 8 Boobies Premium Member join:2004-11-26 Corona, CA |
oliphant
Premium Member
2005-Oct-23 6:17 pm
Just like the title says..."ONLY" 9.3 million...9+ million new subs is a TON. It's not quite the tonnage of last year but still tonnage. | |
| ZOverLord Premium Member join:2003-10-20 Minneapolis, MN |
It's The Economy!Hard to afford Broadband when the only jobs are at Walmart | |
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