Smartphones a preferred route to the Internet by 25% of users: Pew

Does a new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project — its first standalone measure of smartphone ownership —hint at a turning tide for the telcos?

The study, conducted in May, found that 83% of U.S. adults have cell phones and 35% — more than a third — have smartphones. Still more interestingly, a quarter of those smartphone users said that rather than a computer, they mostly use their phones to access the Internet.

"While many of these individuals have other sources of online access at home, roughly one-third of these 'cell mostly' Internet users lack a high-speed home broadband connection," states the Pew report.

Those smartphone owners particularly likely to say they "mostly go online using their phones," adds the study, tend to be young (under the age of 30), non-white and have relatively low levels of income and education.

If two-thirds have online access at home but prefer their smartphone, will broadband connections eventually head the way of landlines, which have steadily been on the decline in recent years? An April report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (which has historically relied heavily on calls to landlines for its surveys) found approximately 24% of adults and 28% of children to be living in wireless-only households, with the figures varying to as high as 46% of kids in Arkansas.

The decision to go entirely without a landline is often tied to a household's financial situation. With the U.S. unemployment rate up to 9.2% in June, are broadband connections a next likely area for American cost cutting?

In January, AT&T, for example, posted a 210,000 net gain in wireline broadband connections. In April, its net wireline broadband gains were 175,000.

If such a trend is underway, it's happening slowly.

The Pew study added that the Android smartphone platform — the most prevalent platform — is especially common among young adults and African-Americans, while iPhones and RIM BlackBerry handsets "are most prevalent among college graduates and the financially well off."