Online Penetration Continues to Grow

According to data from Barclays Capital, approximately 75% of U.S. households are connected to the Internet, with broadband accounting for 84% of those connections.

Online penetration is up from 50% in 2001 and they believe that penetration can get close to 80% by 2010 and that broadband homes can account for 90% of all connections, up from only 20% in 2001.

Cable and DSL broadband connections are evenly split at 47% each of total broadband connections, with the remaining 6% I assume are coming from satellite, WiMax, and connections over power lines. DSL lines are expected to surpass cable lines over time, according to Barclays Capital. That could potentially disrupt the triple play offerings from the cable companies.

It is not hard to imaging Internet penetration rates approaching 100% in the U.S. given the change in generations and growth of WiMax and projects to provide free Internet availability. Further, satellite and power lines can bring up the rear where cable and DSL cannot reach.

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Comments

[Laxman.R:]

That's very interesting. I wonder what technologies exist out there that will help DSL compete with Cable. DSL runs on copper that has limited band-width as a result of frequency attenuation at higher frequencies. If DSL has to offer Triple-play and IPTV, then the wires need to support a very high bandwidth with low signal to noise characteristics.

Further, I would also imagine that 4G networks (WiMax), should it take off in a big way will be strong competitor to Cable and DSL down the road.

2008 Dec 26 03:04 PM

[enisus:]

DSL has no future and is going to become less and less potent in the developed world. The future is FTTx (fibre to the x).

Jan 08 05:33 PM