Pew Study Group made public a survey and research that shows broadband acceptance slowing down from 20% annual growth in 2004 to about 12% in 2005. Given that less than half of US households are on broadband, this is not welcome trend.
Pew Research discounts costs and or inconvenience and instead cites cultural factors – dial-up modem service is just good enough. Here in Canada, where there is vigorous competition for broadband users and fairly competitive pricing, broadband adoption is nearly 50% higher- so I suspect economics may have more to do with this than Pew is admitting to.
And here is another economic consideration – future pricing. Internet users in general may well be aware of free Wifi hotspots, upcoming WiMAX technology and the moves by municipal governments like Philadelphia, Minneapolis and SanFranciso (with the help of Google) to establish free or very low price access to the Web. There may be more to the slowdown in broadband adoption than meets the eye .
(c)JBSurveyer 2005