p2pnet - rss feed: US broadband use slows
p2p news / p2pnet:- Broadband adoption in the US is growing, but slowing, suggesting that relative to 2002, there’s not much pent-up demand for high-speed internet use, says a new report.
The Pew Internet Project says its May 2005 survey shows 53% of home Net users have high-speed connections at home, up from 50% in December 2004, “a small and not statistically significant increase”. This compared “unfavorably” with growth rates a year earlier when in May 2004, 42% of home internet users had high-speed connections, 20% above the 35% home high-speed penetration figure for November 2003.
- The largest group is comprised of moderately experienced dial-up internet users, ie, those who have been online for more than a year but less than six years. In October 2002, 39 million people (34% of adult internet users) fell into this category. By May 2005, that number was down to 32 million (23% of adult internet users).
- The number of experienced (people who’ve online for six or more years) dial-up internet users has fallen by one-third since October 2002, from 19 million to 13 million in May 2005. In October 2002, 38% of internet users had been online for six years or more, while 58% were in this category by March 2005.
- New internet users – online for a year or less – made up 4% of the internet population in May 2005, compared with 6% in October 2002. In May 2005, about 4 million people fell into the category of novice dial-up internet users. In this small group, the number of likely broadband adopters is quite small because few “newbies” have ever converted to broadband relatively soon after beginning their dial-up connections.
- Currently 32% of the adult population doesn’t use the Net, a number that’s held steady in the first six months of 2005. Few new users seem to be coming online and data show that just 23% of internet users who have adopted in the past year have done so with high-speed connections.
It’s not surprising that the share of dial-up users is declining with the growth of broadband penetration, says Pew, adding:
“But with the slow rate of growth in the overall internet population, there has been an absolute decline in the number of dial-up users in the segments described above. Since few new internet users immediately adopt broadband connections, this points to slower growth in home high-speed subscriptions.”
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See:-
Pew - BROADBAND ADOPTION AT HOME IN THE UNITED STATES: GROWING BUT SLOWING, September 21, 2005
September 22nd, 2005 at 7:27 pm
This is probably because the people who want it in the areas where it is offered already have it. Broadband usage will grow when it is offered in more areas.
September 23rd, 2005 at 12:32 am
It is also likely that the **AA’s have done better than they figured for Joe Six Pack. Mainly high speed broadband has been for the business or for internet downloading. Since the **AA’s have managed to hammer home the internet is their stalking and hunting ground, far less are interested in purchasing hi-speed connections. Another trend helping to make this less interesting to the average citizen is the ISPs tend to limit the upload bandwidth and favor download speed in a lop-sided configuration. ISP’s have done to save bandwith and sell it to more customers without having to purchase more equipment and bandwidth for resale.
DMCA laws aren’t working in favor of more internet connections. Products that might inspire someone to purchase a high speed connection to get, aren’t there or are being re-evaluated with the DMCA in mind. As less traffic becomes the normal, less need also results.
At the end is the prospect that new broadband lines aren’t going into the rural areas near fast enough to gain new users in massive amounts. There are still many places where in a neighborhood, one block may have this internet and yet several blocks away, it isn’t available for the purchasing. Prices for internet service in the US hasn’t followed that of the EU. Costs for hi speed access are far greater than in the EU. This has the effect of making customers ask themselves if they really want this service at such a high price.
In the news has been the likelyhood that the government may require the baby Bells to uncouple their phone service requirement to access ASDL broadband. At present you must carry phone service to have DSL and that adds another $30 dollars or so to the tab for ADSL per month. When you go to looking at a $75-$100 a month payment for internet access many decide that it isn’t worth the money and choose to live without such expense.
September 23rd, 2005 at 12:38 am
I might also add that if the **AA’s are successful in shutting down p2p applications, I for one will give up internet access. I will have no need at that point to pay for such expense. From that point on 56k will be just fine.
September 23rd, 2005 at 2:38 am
The downing of Peer to Peer will put broadband companies out of business, for home users 56K is enough to get on and get off ,it will slowly happen.All this copyright nonsense is killing music(already dead),TV (already dead with copyright LOGO boxes),and now internet (after P2P and conent on the internet is not allowed) I predict the internet will slow even more.Everyone will be scared of getting sued,the whole world is sue happy!
September 23rd, 2005 at 3:14 am
Add in the fact that these rural areas are being Walmarted to death as there’s no job growth, only low paying service sector jobs. Who’s going to pay $40 for high speed internet service? More likely, those people’d rather have Cable TV or more likely Satellite so they can relax in front of the tube instead of s small PC screen after a grueling day’s work for $5.15 an hour. Simple economics. Americans are also being squeezed by soaring energy & healthcare costs. Once the housing bubble collapses, how much more can people put on their creidt cards?
September 23rd, 2005 at 9:04 am
One can expect that the Internet has lost its overall appeal, whether that was provided by p2p’s or other interests. There was a time when surfing the Web was an exciting new adventure; greedy commercialism destroyed the excitement with alacrity!
Following the lead of Microsoft, practically overnight the whole damned Web started charging for everything imaginable — no penny was left untouched. And every company with a Web presence sold its soul to the crass commercialism, which crossed their palms with silver for every name, and email address the web site owners could provide.
It then became blatantly dishonest — swearing on every thing Holy that the Web site owners would rather sacrifice their first born male child than divulge any of a customer’s personal information to anyone else under the sun. Before they would betray your trust, they would submit to torture or worse, because (they assured us) they held our personal privacy to be the single most important thing in the universe. The only circumstance under which they would even remotely consider revealing the information of their customers or web site browsers would be that the individual himself, opted for and permitted such revelation.
They then insisted that in order to gain access to their web sites, you had to agree to “Terms and Conditions”, paramount of which was your agreement to permit them to sell your personal information to marketing agencies and other third parties who then used that information to flood cyber space with junk email to the point that it even awoke a sleeping Congress to the rife plague of spam which clogged our inboxes.
Furthermore, most people are convinced that the authors and inventors of adware and spyware are the same entities that sell the software programs which provide the necessary relief from such nuisances. The blatant invasion of one’s privacy by the Josef-Goebbels-inspired insistence on the placement of “cookies” (again, thanks to M$ and Billy and the Boyz) has turned a lot of people away from Internet use. People simply are not quite as stupid as the Rocket Scientists declare them to be. They might not be super-sharp, and it might take a while for something to sink in, but eventually even the less well-informed or computer literate can put two and two together and deduce that the reason given for “cookies” is so much bullshit, thus obviously a lie, and thus obviously the means by which even more unscrupulous men have invaded one’s privacy and has propelled the crime of identity theft into the stratosphere.
But eventually, the Internet will make a comeback. Open source software was the painfully slow beginning of the coming revolution in the manner in which the Web will be used. I predict that circumstances will reverse themselves: that the Web surfer will be in the position of requiring the compliance with Terms and Agreements which he, himself, sets down — in other words, before I venture onto your commercial web site, if you want my business you will agree to MY conditions — et cetera.
And those cartels will have lost so much money that they will be crawling over each other to please the surfer with generous inducements. Law makers will learn that it is not the PACs with wads of filthy lucre that help them to get elected, it is the citizen comparing notes with his fellow citizens in the open forum of the World Wide Web. It’s almost impossible to imagine, but Congressmen might actually find themselves forced to represent the will of their constituency!
In the meantime, one may expect the approaching decline and fall of the Microsoft Empire; one may anticipate the emergence of the Web as a wasteland; and the wise will be busily preparing for the renaissance. A renaissance of the people, for the people, and, well … etc.
I recommend that a person should project the future and plan for it, keeping in mind that it will not support the robber barons it has supported up till now.
September 24th, 2005 at 7:12 am
I particulary like part of the evaluation that this reader has written. Certainly when it comes to the malware and spyware aspect of the theme. Also the mention of selling your data and email (which many sites require) to the high bidders. It seems as long as i have run Microsucks products it has been nothing but a battle on all fronts.
Something of this large of a problem can’t just be individuals attempting malicousness. In such a scope the problem would not be so widespread. Indeed I suspect the previous poster has hit it on the head with the source of all that is to be protected and secured when preparing to surf the net.
For myself, in an attempt to stop throwing money down a hole for protection services, I went to linux. Much of the above posters reasons are at the core of the decision to do so. While I still have Microsucks products, they no longer see the web as a policy. Microsucks behaves well when not exposed to the internet. It stops all the bs in its tracks. Malware and spyware become an afterthought and not something to worry about anymore. It is certainly a way to secure the OS that works.
For a long time I used Firefox as a browser. Now everyone else is and malware and security issues are popping up as those that depended on IE as their breadbasket go towards the usage trend and follow with cracks on Firefox. With that in mind I have went towards obscurity for the browser as protection. Lesser known browsers have better security because not enough use them to make it worth attention by those that want to steal your data and “give you a little extra” you didn’t want, desire, or wish.
I suspect I am among those that are wising up and limiting my internet surfing to just those sites I am sure are safe in content. It is rare that I just go off to strange sites without using something that acts as armor without allowing attachments. As an example I am using a little known browser for linux called Amaya. It absolutely does not accept cookies. Any site that requires that acceptance I won’t go to.