Friday, June 14, 2019

U.S. Fixed Network Internet Access Market Could be 5% Away from Full Adoption

Consumers sometimes make surprising choices. Consider that 60 percent of people surveyed by the Pew Research Center who do not buy a fixed network internet access service say they never have had high-speed internet service at home in the past.

Some 33 percent say they have had fixed network internet in the past.

But the most-surprising finding is that “most non-adopters are unenthusiastic about the prospect” of buying fixed network access. “Fully 80 percent of non-broadband users say they would not be interested in having broadband at home,” the researchers note.

It is not that they cannot buy it, because the service is not available, nor necessarily because the service is too expensive. Rather, many consumers simply feel their smartphones do everything they need, where it comes to internet apps and services.


That implies that 100-percent fixed network broadband adoption is about 78 percent (present buyers and 20 percent of the non-buyers). Adoption at the moment is 73 percent, suggesting there is about five percent more adoption before the market is fully saturated, and every potential buyer already is a customer.

That is important when assessing the state of internet access adoption in the U.S. market. The percentage of survey respondents who say they have broadband service at home grew from 65 percent in 2018 to 73 percent in 2019.

Some 27 percent of survey respondents do not buy the product, say researchers at Pew Research Center. “And growing shares of these non-adopters cite their mobile phone as a reason for not subscribing to these services.”


Even in advance of 5G, which will in many cases become a full substitute for fixed network internet access, 17 percent of survey respondents say they already are “mobile only” for internet access.

As has been true in the past, income and education play key roles in propensity to purchase fixed network internet access. Some  92 percent of adults from households earning $75,000 or more a year say they have broadband internet at home, but that share falls to 56 percent among those whose annual household income falls below $30,000, according to the Pew Research Center.


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