Broadband Now IS Internet Access

Granted, there still are many places where broadband access is expensive, hard to get or even unavailable. Still, in many markets, broadband simply IS Internet access. In the United States, for example, 70 of homes with Internet access buy fixed network broadband service. Just three percent of homes buy fixed network dial-up access services. 

Quantifying the growing role of mobile broadband access is harder. For starters, mobile data access is widely consumed. Some 46 percent of U.S. residents have both a home broadband connection and a smart phone. 

About 24 percent of residents have a home broadband connection, but not a smart phone and some 10 percent have a smart phone, but not a home broadband connection. 

So some might say 10 percent of U.S. homes are relying on mobile access as their exclusive at-home form of Internet access. 

The remaining 20 percent of people have neither a home broadband connection nor a smart phone. 

Since 10 percent of U.S. residents do not have a broadband connection at home but own a smart phone, that implies 32 percent of non-broadband users use a smart phone, and presumably therefore mobile data, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Since 70 percent have traditional broadband, that means that 80 percent of U.S. residents have either a broadband connection, a smart phone, or both. You can make your own estimate of whether a 3G connection qualifies as broadband. 

In several years, when most people are using 4G, it might be more accurate to say that 80 percent of U.S. residents use broadband, if they use the Internet.