A significant percentage of American consumers have no wired broadband connection at home, relying instead on smartphones to connect to the Internet. If the trend continues, it heralds a substantial near-term change in Internet access patterns. John Horrigan, a vice president at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, says an estimated 7 percent of U.S. consumers already are dependent on smartphones for Internet access. That number may not sound high, but if the growth at all parallels the shift from landline voice service to cellphones across American households, the access market could be on the cusp of radical change. A report published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in December found that more than one-third of households were cellphone-only for voice service as of the first half of 2012, the latest period for which data are available.
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