Broadband Adoption is Not Just about Availability

Some observers think broadband adoption is primarily a matter of availability. It is important, but it is not the only important factor.

Even if every home and business in every OECD country were wired with a broadband connection, the United States "per capita" rank would actually fall to 20th, because of differences in the size of households in each of the countries.

In other words, "America would be 100 percent broadband saturated and yet our standing would plummet because the OECD ranks on a per capita basis rather than per household," says Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Robert McDowell.

In Spain, for example, 28 percent of people flatly say they "do not want" broadband. About 15 percent of homes do not own a computer.

About 13 percent of surveyed consumers say they do not find the Internet "useful."

S0me 12 percent say they do not have time to use the Internet and 10 percent say they do not know what the Internet is. Only four percent of non-users say it is "too expensive."

So the main reason non-users are not buying broadband access services is that they do not see the Internet's usefulness and value.