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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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Report Says Stimulus Spending Won’t

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