It looks like, far behind much of the rest of the OECD region, residential broadband penetration in the US is already starting to slow to a crawl. Will a new president bring us a new broadband policy? Or is this just a case of market saturation - rural areas aside, where access is still an issue, could demand for broadband in the US just be lower than the rest of the world since we have so many other media in our homes?
From Home Broadband Adoption 2007:
The report finds that nearly half (47%) of all adult Americans now have
a high-speed internet connection at home, according to a February 2007
survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The
percentage of Americans with broadband at home has grown from 42% in
early 2006 and 30% in early 2005. Among individuals who use the internet
at home, 70% have a high-speed connection while 23% use dialup.
The 12% growth rate from 2006 to 2007 represents trails the 40% increase
in the 2005 to 2006 timeframe, when many people in the middle-income and
older age groups acquired home broadband connections. Those groups
continued to show increases in home broadband adoption into early 2007,
but at lower rates than in the past.
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