US Broadband Penetration Breaks 35% - May 2003 Bandwidth Report

Summary: Broadband penetration in US homes jumped 1.7 percentage points in April 2003. Over 35% of wired households in the US enjoy a broadband connection.

US broadband penetration broke 35% in April among active Internet users. Broadband penetration in US homes jumped 1.7 percentage points in April 2003.

Home Connectivity in the US

As of April 2003, most users in the US connect to the Internet using dial-up modems of 56Kbps or less. 51.13% use 56Kbps modems, 9.47% use 28/33.3Kbps, and 3.95% use 14.4Kbps modems. All told 64.55% of home users in the US connect to the Internet at 56Kbps or less (see Figure 1).

Web Connection Speed Trends - Home Users (US)

Figure 1: Web Connection Speed Trends - Home Users (US)
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings

Broadband Growth in the US

Broadband penetration in US homes jumped 1.7 percentage points in April. As of April 2003 broadband penetration was at 35.45%, up from 33.78% in March. This is higher than the average increase in broadband of 1.2 percentage points per month from October 2002 to March 2003. Extrapolating the data provided by Nielsen//NetRatings, broadband share in the US should exceed 50% by June of 2004 (see Figure 2).

Broadband Connection Speed Trend - Home Users (US)

Figure 2: Broadband Connection Speed Trend - Home Users (US)
Extrapolated from Nielsen//NetRatings data

Work Connectivity

Most workers in the US enjoy high-speed connections to the Internet. Most use a high-speed line such as a T1 connection, and share bandwidth between computers connected to a network. The speed of each connection decreases as more employees hook up to the LAN. As of April 2003, of those connected to the Internet, 69.3% of US users at work enjoy a high-speed connection, up from 68.9% in April. 30.7% connect from work at 56Kbps or less (see Figure 3).