Pew Internet Survey Shows that Broadband Adoption has Slowed

Published on August 11, 2010 in Broadband Data by Rahul Gaitonde

WASHINGTON August 11, 2010- The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released their Home Broadband survey. While adoption has generally been increasing this year adoption has slowed. The only group showing growth was African Americans.

“After several consecutive years of modest but consistent growth, broadband adoption slowed dramatically in 2010. Two-thirds of American adults (66%) currently use a high-speed internet connection at home, a figure that is not statistically different from what The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found at a similar point in 2009, when 63% of Americans were broadband adopters.”

The survey showed that African American adoption jumped from 46% in 2009 to 56%.

In addition to tracking adoption the survey asked if expanding broadband should be a top government priority.

The survey also found that nearly a fifth of adults do not use the internet since they feel it is not relevant to their lives. “one-third (34%) of non-internet users have some familiarity with the internet, either from past personal experience or from living in a household where someone else goes online. Since we first asked these questions in spring 2002, roughly one in five non-users have consistently answered “yes” to each of these questions.”

Currently 66 percent of adults have high speed access at home which is only a slight increase from last year.

The digital divide between rural and non-rural still exits with, only 50 percent of rural adults having broadband access at home; in non-rural areas 70 percent have access.

Tags: adoption Pew Internet & American Life

Rahul Gaitonde has been writing for BroadbandBreakfast.com since the fall of 2009, and in May of 2010 he became Deputy Editor. He was a fellow at George Mason University’s Long Term Governance Project, a researcher at the International Center for Applied Studies in Information Technology and worked at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. He holds a Masters of Public Policy from George Mason University, where his research focused on the economic and social benefits of broadband expansion. He has written extensively about Universal Service Fund reform, the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program and the Broadband Data Improvement Act