Nielsen: Broadband use nears 75% in U.S.

Almost three-quarters of active U.S. Web users logged on using a broadband connection in May, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, up from 57% a year ago. Still the broadband market is not saturated, the market research firm concluded.

Nielsen/Net Ratings research shows that broadband users are more likely to make better use of newer technologies and Internet functionality such as RSS feeds and blogging, the company said. Non-broadband consumers are more likely to be drawn to higher-speed service as they want to access bandwidth-intensive services such as video, said Jon Gibs, senior director of media for Nielsen/Net Ratings.

“We're past the point where decreasing prices and increasing availability will move the needle for providers; the remaining consumers will be pushed to broadband as the Internet continues to move beyond text-based information to a comprehensive source for video,” he said in a prepared statement.

The total number of home broadband users has grown 30% year over year, the company said, from 78.6 million in May 2005 to 102.5 million in May 2006. During the same period, the number of narrowband users dropped 31%, from 58.8 million to 40.3 million.

Separately, Nielsen ranked the top sites and the top advertisers on the Internet. The top 10 sites, by brand, are Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google, MSN, AOL, eBay, Mapquest, MySpace, Amazon and Real Networks. Microsoft, Yahoo!, Time Warner, Google, eBay, News Corp., InterActive Corp., Amazon, Walt Disney Internet Group and New York Times were the top 10 sites, by parent company.