With a miserable economy - and a gut feeling that nearly everyone who really wants high-speed Internet access and can afford it probably has it by now - I would have predicted slow growth or none at all this year in that market.
Not so. Some 55 percent of Americans had broadband service at home in April this year, compared with 47 percent the year before and less than 35 percent in 2005. Only 10 percent of Americans still use dial-up Internet service at home.
The figures are to be reported today by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
They show that high-speed Internet service is rapidly becoming just another utility - maybe not as necessary as electricity, natural gas or a land phone line, but certainly in the same category as cable TV or a cell phone.
The millions already using the Internet to watch videos, listen to music and make phone calls are undoubtedly helping convince stragglers that it is time to switch to broadband.
The 2008 broadband subscriber numbers represent an overall growth rate of 17 percent, compared with 12 percent the year before, which is pretty good performance in a bummed-out economic climate. However, John Horrigan, the Pew project's associate director for research, noted that almost all that growth occurred before December 2007, before consumer confidence tanked completely.
Since turndowns affect the spending habits of the poor first, broadband adoption among low-income Americans (those making less than $20,000 a year) declined slightly to 25 percent in April. That is still higher than I would have thought, considering the average cost of broadband is close to $400 a year - at least 2 percent of a low-income household budget.
But among those with slightly higher incomes ($20,000 to $40,000) the growth rate for home broadband continued to be spectacular this year - almost 25 percent.
One reason may be that the price of broadband is declining (although not in all places). Respondents told Pew they paid an average of $31.50 a month for DSL (down 50 cents from last year), while average cable Internet charges fell almost 12 percent to $37.50.
No secret here. Cable companies are under increasing pressure from low-end phone company digital subscriber line on one hand, and from high-end fiber-optic service on the other.
The pollsters said average prices might have fallen even more were it not for an increasing number of broadband users (29 percent) who pay an average of $5 a month extra for higher speed, premium service. That's a higher proportion than I would have thought, too.
