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high-speed web access
Approaches 20%, nearly doubling over six months
By Marty Beard
There's a school of thought out there that argues that the internet will never become a mainstream medium until Americans are always logged on, without having to dial up across telephone lines.
In some ways it's a critical juncture, if not a barrier, because it calls for the user to invite a cable or DSL installer into the home to make the broadband connection that enables the full-time, high-speed internet access.
Now it appears that this critical juncture is moving a lot closer and perhaps a lot faster than many thought.
Over the past half year, the share of households connecting to the internet via broadband access, either through cable or DSL, has about doubled.
A study by Statistical Research, conducted this spring, found that 9 percent of all households were going online via high-speed connections. That’s nearly double last fall’s figure of 5 percent.
Out of all homes with internet access, 17 percent were using a broadband connection, up from 11 percent last fall.
"The increase in broadband is particularly important because having broadband access changes people’s use of the internet," says David C. Tice, Statistical Research’s director of client services and the author of the Spring 2001 Ownership Report. "They don’t have to dial up, so they’re much more likely to use it."
Indeed they are.
Sixty-five percent of broadband-equipped homes report having bought something over the web within the past 60 days, compared to just 43 percent of homes that still use dial-up internet connections.
Of all wired homes, 46 percent have bought products or services online within the past 60 days.
As logic would suggest, early adopters of broadband tend to be more affluent and presumably more educated.
That's for the simple reason that broadband costs twice as much, on average, or about $40 a month versus $20 for dial-up.
"It’s not until you get to households that make $50,000 or more that broadband really takes off," says Tice, noting that in households that earn less than $50,000, just 3 or 4 percent have high-speed access.
Sixty percent of households have computers, and 17 percent have two or more of them. Of the households that don’t have PCs, 13 percent report that they plan to get one within the next six months.
Among homes with high-speed access, cable modems are the most widespread channel for going online. Tice says that 70 percent of high-speed users have cable modems and 30 percent use DSL.
Sixty-five percent of homes that go online via dial-up use a shared phone line rather than a dedicated line.
Forty-nine percent of households have three or more TVs, and 24 percent have four or more. Forty-eight percent of home computers are located in the same room as a TV set, and 50 percent are in the same room as a radio.
SRI’s Ownership Study also found that 65 percent of homes have cable television, which has implications for the spread of broadband, according to Tice.
Ninety-two percent of the households surveyed reported that they can at the very least have access to cable TV if they want it, and more than half say that digital cable is available in their area, meaning that cable internet access is an option.
"We’re getting to the point where people who want high-speed access, and who have access to it, maybe have it already," Tice says.
"It’s taken 20 years for computers to get into 60 percent of households. It took awhile for the average person to have a need and a use for it. We’ll probably see the same thing with broadband."
The study also found that twice as many homes have DVD players now than did six months ago. Sixteen percent of households own a DVD player, up from 8 percent last fall, meaning that they are spreading beyond early-adopter households.
While Tice says the study found no correlation between DVD ownership and broadband use other than the simple fact that technology tends to cluster, he agrees that DVD ownership patterns will affect the internet.
"It raises the bar because as more and more people get used to watching movies on DVD, they’re going to get used to that kind of quality," he says. "If somebody wants to try and put video on the internet, they’ve now got to go from being as good as a VHS video to being as good as a DVD."
June 4, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Marty Beard is a staff writer for Media Life.
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