Adoption, Not Availability, is the Broadband Problem

What broadband really needs--more than money to build more broadband-- is action on the demand side, says David McClure, U.S. Internet Industry Association president. The reason is that only about one percent of Americans actually cannot buy broadband access if they want to. 

"We can now reach 99 percent of all households in the United States with some form of broadband," he says. "We are in pretty darn good shape."

The issue some policy advocates seem to be concerned about actually is not "availability" but rather "appetite" or other issues. Some potential customers might want broadband, but do not own PCs. Others might want broadband, but can't afford to buy it. Many potential users do not use PCs. 

About 25 percent of the U.S. population does not use the Internet at all, McClure notes. "Worse than that, they don't care if they don't get it."

About 51 percent of the non-users say the Internet is not relevant to their lives, McClure adds. 

It is true that 66 percent of the U.S. population now has some form of broadband at home. But that is a different matter than "availability." Cable modem service alone reaches 19 out of 20 homes in America, for example.

About nine percent of users have a dial-up connection. Of these, the majority cite price as the reason they haven't switched to broadband. 

"Broadband in America is in wonderful shape and if you hear differently, it is a lie," McClure says. "Adoption is the problem, not deployment."

That doesn't mean we should neglect targeted investment in some areas where broadband really is not available or where coverage is spotty, he says. But there are several demand side issues that must be tackled to stimulate more usage. literacy is an issue. PC ownership and training are issues. 

Investments in “smart networks” to enhance the efficiency of the networks and provide for advanced products and services also would be useful. 

"Ask a 'public policy' advocate to name a place where broadband isn't available," McClure says. "They don't know any."

"U.S. broadband infrastructure is ranked fourth in the world and rapidly improving," he says. "U.S. broadband adoption is ranked at 15th in the world and not improving."

The important point is that "we are 15th in terms of adoption, not availability."

36% of Social Networkers Want Access from TVs

A recent survey of over 1000 households conducted by ABI Research found that 36 percent of those who currently use social media on a regular basis say they’d like to access their networks on the TV screen.

Younger consumers were more interested in engaging with their friends through chat and messaging, while middle-aged respondents were more likely to be interested in more passive social networking behavior such as checking status updates. 

The most popular potential application for those over 50 who expressed interest in TV social networking was being able to see what their friends were watching on TV.

Not a Good Day for Arizona Cox Customers

Both broadband access and voice seem to be down across much of the state.

Time Warner Cable Grows Revenues 8% in Recessionary Year

How does Time Warner Cable perform in a full year of recession? By growing revenues eight percent, or $1.2 billion, over full-year 2007, to reach $17.2 billion. Subscription revenues were up eight percent($1.2 billion) to $16.3 billion. Video revenues grew four percent ($359 million) to $10.5 billion, benefiting from the continued growth in digital video subscriptions and video price increases.

High-speed data revenues rose 12 percent ($429 million) to $4.2 billion, driven by continued high-speed data subscriber growth. Voice revenues climbed 36 percent ($426 million) to $1.6 billion.

The rate of revenue units added slowed later in the year, though. That is in line with past recessions, when customers delayed adding more enhanced services. 

Still, Time Warner faces a problem in its legacy video business that telcos face in their legacy voice business. Time Warner Cable is losing "basic video" subs, as telcos are losing voice line customers. Time Warner Cable lost 119,000 customers in that category when some analysts anticipated 27,000 to 46,000 or so basic cable customer losses. 

Keep in mind, though, that these losses would likely have occurred even without a recession, as market share shifts away from cable and to telco video services are a secular trend that was underway before the recession. 

60% of Workers Use Social Networking Sites

About 60 percent of working Americans (18 years old or more) used one or more social networking sites at end of 2008, according to Compass Intelligence. About 35 percent of working Americans say they use Facebook, while 29 percent say they use LinkedIn.

About 60 percent of working Americans not using social networking say they don't use them because "it's not a good use" of their time. 

Conferencing Now the Lead UC Application, It Seems

I've been speaking on, and running, panel sessions on unified communications for some time, as have many of my other associates who follow UC. I've noticed a shift early this year: people now are talking a lot more about conferencing, and less about integrating voice, instant messaging,email,  mobile and fixed services. 

What that suggests is that "what is selling" is conferencing. It might, or might not, suggest a certain sluggishness of buyer response to the more-traditional pitches. 

Jill Taylor, product marketing executive for Verizon Business, says  "conferencing is becoming the lead product for UC." That's a switch. 

Verizon Business is one of the first global service providers to integrate audio and Web conferencing services across multiple leading IM services, including IBM Lotus Sametime Unified Communications and Collaboration, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server  2005 and the Cisco Jabber XCP, says Taylor. 

"I don't know that it is the economic climate solely, but it plays there," she says. The idea is to use a presence-based client to escalate into an audio or a net session, making the meeting experience more intuitive, instantaneous and flexible, Taylor says.

Sametime, Lotus, Jabber are supported. Also some additional integration: leader can launch other features such as Web moderator, a call management tool that allows you to visually see who is on a call, record a session as well. Better integration from the desktop. Lots more intuitive. 

The push for Jabber conferencing came from the finance and pharmaceutical communities, which are key Jabber user verticals.

The new tools are available immediately for U.S.-based organizations and are scheduled to be rolled out internationally later this year, along with Verizon audio and net conferencing integration with Microsoft Office Communicator 2007. 

Also, Verizon Business is calling the new features "spontaneous collaboration." The linguistic shift is important. "UC" is a reasonable provider-side description. But it doesn't necessarily resonate with end users. "Spontaneous collaboration" is better. From an end user perspective, it better describes "something I can do."

More 3G, But Majority of Users Don't Use Broadband Features?

Use of smart phones with full HTML browsers that offer a true Internet browsing experience increased steadily in 2008, according to comScore. 

So mobile browsing  grew 34 percent during

the year. But users on 3G networks grew 43 percent from November 2007 to November 2008.

So the percentage of 3G users using the mobile Web did not change over 2008. In fact, the percentage of 3G users who do not use the mobile Web might have slipped a bit.