Low Income Families Losing Ground in Broadband Use

In 2007, 47% of all families used a high speed form of connection at home. The latest survey in 2008 shows that 55 5 of all families are using high speed connection. This is according to the recent release of survey information by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

However, there are problems, especially with lower income families. Only 25% of families with a base income lower than $20,000 had high speed connections. Last year it was 28%.

Many believe that the poor economy has had a lot to do with the decrease. Families are sacrificing high speed for lower speed in an attempt to save money for other necessitates. Broadband is more expensive than dial up connection service.

Still there are some areas that don't have the ability for broadband yet. Cable is not available in some parts of the country. Cellphone towers have void areas as well.

Here is a look at the survey results. 19% of Americans 65 and older have broadband connections. 70% of 18-29 year old have high speed. Households under the $20,000 25%. Households with income over $100,000 is 85%. 60% of all suburban communities have broadband, while only 38% of the people that live in rural areas have high speed Internet. 28% of non High School graduates have it. 79% of all College graduates have broadband. 58% of all males have high speed access 53% of all females have broadband for use.

The final summary indicates several factors. First those with higher incomes have more broadband use. Second, those individuals with a college education also have a higher use. People that live in more density populated areas also have more broadband use. Lastly, younger individuals are using it more.

Many times younger individuals are more in touch with the new technologies compared with the older citizens. This could be do to several factors. Older individuals are on fixed budgets and they feel secure with what they have. Younger individuals are always looking for faster and more liberal ways to make connections. Higher educated individuals can not only afford to pay for it but, have a better understanding of how it works compared to uneducated individuals.

A good example of the difference in dial up and broadband can be seen in my small town. The difference can be seen economically. I have two sets of friends. Those that have and those that don't. By this, I mean income. The friends that are on fixed income, suffer through with the slow response of dial up. They don't even want to chance it because they are afraid that they will like broadband so much that they will sacrifice other things to use it.

My friends that have the ability to afford it, can't believe that they went so long without it. In some cases however, it wasn't available in their area geographically. In some cases wireless Internet isn't available.

Speaking from experience, I went from a very cheap $9.75 a month for dial up to $34.99 a month for high speed broadband. I have discovered one other thing in the past few months. Since I went to Mozilla firefox Version 3, I have found it to be twice as fast as Internet Explorer. I have not had the opportunity to use Firefox on dial up. I don't even know if it is compatible for dial up. However, I see a big difference in firefox.

One other small area of concern that I often think about is with use of IPods, and cellphones, I often wonder if the wireless systems are getting too much traffic.

Sources; Home Broadband Adoption Survey; 2008