A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that as of May 2005, 53 percent of Americans who go online from home have high speed Internet connections, but the growth of broadband access in 2005 is substantially lower than it was in 2004. In December 2004 50 percent of Americans reported using high-speed Internet from home, making the reported 2005 increase of three percent statistically insignificant. In contrast, the same study found broadband adoption increased from 35 to 42 percent of U.S. homes between November 2004 and May 2004, a 20 percent increase.
"In 2002, our data showed that lots of dial-up internet users were also very heavy internet users," said John B. Horrigan, who is both the report’s author and the Director of Research at the Pew Internet Project. Heavy dial-up users tend to convert to broadband as they learn more about the Internet and become more dependent upon it for news, information, entertainment, and professional needs, but today’s dialup users are less likely to be heavy Internet users, and to be "older, less educated, and with lower income than their counterparts in 2002."
Furthermore, since few people are coming online for the first time, the pool of potential future broadband subscribers is not growing quickly, and future adoption of broadband in U.S. households may decline farther. "There are fewer people hankering for high speed now and that means less pent-up demand for broadband," said Horrigan.
The study’s findings are being presented this week at the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference at George Mason University.
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