PCCA Journal|1
st
Quarter 2010
33
A
nalysis of most recent FCC
data (January 2008) reveals
that about 45 million of the
more than 117 million U.S.
households have no internet service
and when “no internet” households
are added to those households us-
ing dial-up to reach the internet,
the number of non-broadband
households approaches 58 million,
according to a new market research
study from the Insight Research
Corporation. These 58 million non-
broadband households represent 49
percent of the households in the U.S.
According to Insight Research’s
market analysis study, “Rural Versus
Urban Telecommunications in the
US: Changes in Markets and Tech-
nologies, 2009-2014,” projecting the
FCC 2008 data to year-end 2009 and
taking into account further broad-
band penetrations, it is estimated
that 40 million households will still
lack broadband access at the close
of 2014. Current federal stimulus
spending of $6.4 billion would allow
for an investment of $164 per house-
hold to provide broadband access to
the non-broadband households. The
availability of such a small invest-
ment amount per household casts
serious doubt that any significant
expansion of broadband access will
result from this government action.
This position is further bolstered by
the argument that, at the current
estimate of $1,500 per household, at
least $60 billion would be needed to
deploy universal broadband access.
“Certainly the current administra-
tion recognizes the direct relation-
ship between extending broadband
access to all Americans and the
future health of our economy, but
the current allocation of funds is
just not going to get the job done,”
said Robert Rosenberg, president
of Insight Research. “Our analysis
found that a substantial portion of
the 49 percent without broadband
had no computers in their homes.
There is a chicken and egg problem
here that needs to be considered by
our policy-makers.”
News Briefs continued on page 34
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