From the Wall St. Journal:
For all the fuss over Americans dropping their cable subscriptions in favor of Internet video, another type of cord cutting appears to be more common.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans canceled their home Internet service last year, surveys suggest, taking advantage of the proliferation of Wi-Fi hot spots and fast new wireless networks that have made Web connections on smartphones and tablets ubiquitous.
Last year around 1% of U.S. households stopped paying for home Internet subscriptions and relied on wireless access instead, according to consumer surveys by Leichtman Research Group Inc. Just 0.4% of households in the last year canceled their pay-television subscriptions in favor of getting video entertainment over the Internet via services such as Hulu or Netflix.
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Despite such cord cutting, the cable industry continues to add Internet subscribers, and most cellphone providers aren’t encouraging people to switch completely away from wired Internet service.
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Still, with average home Internet charges approaching $50 a month and typical low-end smartphone plans costing at least that much, many Americans can’t or don’t want to pay for both. Surveys suggest that those who have to make the choice are choosing smartphone service—which, after all, offers both voice and online access—instead of home Internet. Minorities and people with low incomes are far more likely than the average American to rely on their phones as their primary way to get online, the Pew Research Center found last year.
Read the Complete Article (Includes Chart and Audio)
See Also: 1.1 Million Add Broadband in the First Quarter of 2013 (via Leichtman Research)
Includes list of top broadband and cable providers.
About Gary Price
