Broadband growth getting slower in North America

Broadband growth getting slower in North America

People have moved on from dial-up connections to broadband so fast that the agencies are now noticing a slower growth rate of broadband users in the country. The Pew Research Center research has reported that from December 2004 to May 2005 the number increased only 3 percent, which is a rather negligent growth rate for this kind of market.

In comparison, the market grew by 20% during the period of November 2003 to May 2004. Most remaining dial-up users have shown reluctance in moving to higher speed broadband connections provided by third party users as they already have the connection provided by their phone or cable companies. Earlier these were some of the largest movers to the fast internet connectivity.

The report’s author John B. Horrigan spoke about these trends: `There are fewer people hankering for high speed now and that means less pent-up demand for broadband’. Most of the users who were frustrated with their speeds on dialup connections have already upgraded leaving users who do not go online that much and hence are happy with what they have.

However, market analysts believe that the trend is expected to change in the future with more variety of content coming online. Internet is slowly moving beyond the web and features like VoIP and video conferencing would entice these users to move forward to better service providers. Their reports also said that as many as 66 million Americans had high-speed Internet connections at home.