Broadband Excels Around Globe, Americans Apathetic to Internet
Broadband connections are covering the globe at a rapid speed. The growth that speedier connections are seeing is not just confined to reach, but to actual speeds as well, as countries like Japan and South Korea are seeing faster connections being adopted in households.
Homes in Japan and South Korea are seeing widespread adoption of higher speed broadband connections, such as fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) connections. Japan, especially, is seeing this. In 2006, about 7.5 million homes in the country had FTTH, WiMAX, satellite, or other emerging broadband connections. South Korea had 2.9 million homes with this access in 2006.
As households in both countries are leaving behind DSL connections to adopt these faster connections, Japan is expected to have 20.0 million households with faster connections by 2011, while South Korea is expected to have 6.9 million households with faster connections by this year. For Japan, this would represent a 34.6% penetration rate, while in South Korea it would be an 81.9% penetration rate.
In 2006, the U.S. and China were the top countries in terms of the number of households with broadband Internet access, with 54.6 million and 46.6 million respectively.
However, in terms of percentage of total households in a country with broadband access, South Korea is far ahead of the rest of the pack with a 78.8% penetration. Canada follows behind with a penetration rate of 58.0%, while Japan trails with 52.3% of households having access to broadband speeds. In the U.S., 45.9% of households have broadband access.
For the U.S., the 54.6 million households with broadband access is a noticeable increase from 2005’s 43.9 million figure. This number is expected to reach 65.0 million in 2007, and 89.9 million in 2011, which would represent a 69.3% penetration rate.
Despite these encouraging numbers, a recent study conducted by Park Associates in Dallas, Texas indicates that nearly a third of Americans do not have access to the Internet and do not plan on getting access.
To be more precise, about 29% of U.S. households do not have access to the Web and have no plans to subscribe to a connection within the next 12 months. This translates into about 31 million homes.
Households who answered this way point mainly to the fact that they do not see a significant level of value that the Internet offers to their daily lives.
Money is less of a factor than perception, as 44% of participating households indicated that they are just not interested in the Internet, as opposed to 22% that said they do not have the funds needed to purchase a computer or access to the Internet.
Seventeen percent of respondents who indicated that they do not use the Internet said they are not sure how to use the Web, while 14% indicated that they satisfy their Internet needs at work. Only 3% said that Internet connections do not reach their homes.
John Barrett, director of Research at Parks Associates, says that “Entertainment applications will be the key. If anything will pull in the holdouts, it’s going to be applications that make the Internet more akin to pay TV.”
As home entertainment centers become more integrated with computers and the Web, and as entertainment value increases online, Barrett could be right. With more legitimate and polished content making its way online, these Internet avoiders may be compelled to cave in sooner than they think.
Sources:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1004697
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20070325/tc_cmp/
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