Broadband penetration nearing 50% of active Internet users

Broadband penetration in the U.S. reached 47.87% of all active Internet home users in April and the penetration is trending upwards quickly, according to new market data. But the trend could have a ceiling as other countries have demonstrated broadband penetration peters out at the 70% mark, according to Andy King, author of the Bandwidth Report.

King said that Canada reached 67% penetration of active home Internet users before it reached a plateau, while Korea reached the 70% mark before its penetration numbers began tapering off. Meanwhile the U.S. had a surge in penetration of 1.9 percentage points, two and a half times its normal growth rate, King said. There’s no way that growth rate can be maintained and the U.S. will most likely encounter the same plateau at 70% penetration that Canada and Korea saw, King said.

The reasons are numerous, but they mainly have to do with deployments and peoples’ attitudes--there are rural and underserved areas broadband just won’t reach, and there is a large percentage of people who don’t need anything more than narrowband access to navigate the Internet. Penetration will eventually reach 100%, but only after broadband availability is ubiquitous and the technology progresses to the point that a fast connection is necessary to perform basic tasks on the Internet, King said.