US Broadband fulfills need for Speed.

Next up, market saturation.

Broadband is getting cheaper, faster and more widely available, which is why 70% of US homes will have broadband Internet access by 2012, according to JupiterResearch’s “US Broadband Forecast, 2007 to 2012: LECs Maintain Advantage over Cable Operators in Quest for New Subscribers” report.

That means 36 million new broadband subscriptions in the next five years, resulting in 86 million households with high-speed Internet connections.

Doug Williams of JupiterResearch said, “As broadband becomes more attractive to consumers from an economic perspective, current dial-up users will be more likely to migrate to broadband service, and consumers who are new to the online population will never take dial-up service in the first place.”

The firm’s 2006 projection was for 65% US household broadband penetration by 2011.

Leichtman Research Group’s “Broadband Access and Service in the Home 2007” study put current broadband penetration at 53% of all US households.

“Nearly three-quarters of households in the US now subscribe to an Internet service, and broadband has grown to account for over 70% of all online subscribers at home,” said Bruce Leichtman.

Leichtman Research also found that availability is becoming less of an issue for would-be subscribers. Overall, 7% of Internet subscribers said that broadband is not available in their area.

The firm’s projection was even more optimistic than Jupiter’s, with an estimated 40 million new broadband subscribers signing up by 2012.

eMarketer’s own projections indicate that nearly three-quarters of US households will be connected to the Internet by 2011, and 94.1% of these households will use broadband.

eMarketer Senior Analyst Ben Macklin notes, “What is interesting about broadband adoption these days is not so much the transition from dial-up to broadband — that process is almost completed — but people trading up from high-speed Internet to very-high-speed Internet.

“And don’t think broadband users have trouble finding a use for their extra speed. The Web has quickly become an entertainment platform and the array of channels only expands with extra speed.”

Courtesy of http://www.emarketer.com