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.

Read more at SmartPlanet.

The Federal Communications Commission's Federal-State Joint Conference on Advanced Services, with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), held a Summit on February 7, 2013 to identify and discuss best practices learned from broadband adoption programs and academic studies/surveys, and how implementation of these best practices can close the broadband adoption gap among Americans – particularly low-income households, racial and ethnic minorities, seniors, rural residents, residents of Tribal lands and people with disabilities.

Vice President and Media and Technology Institute Director Dr. John Horrigan participated in the first of four panels at this event, entitled What Have We Learned from Academic Studies on How to Close the Broadband Adoption Gap. Dr. Horrigan discussed the four major lessons learned since the release of the National Broadband Plan.

Photos from this event can be found on the FCC Flickr stream.

As a prelude to the February 7, 2013, FCC/NTIA summit, Vice President and Media and Technology Institute Director Dr. John Horrigan has released a statement on broadband adoption knowledge since the release of the National Broadband Plan.

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In September 2009, the FCC’s Broadband Task Force, appointed by Chairman Genachowski and run by Blair Levin, made a lengthy presentation before the Commission to give an interim report on how development of the National Broadband Plan (NBP) was going. You can see all 168 slides here. I was privileged to be part of the FCC’s team that assembled the NBP. To prepare for my participation in the FCC’s February 2013 Broadband Summit, I went back and looked at the 2009 presentation which, at the time, represented the received wisdom about the state of broadband adoption. Below I discuss four lessons learned in light of what we thought we knew in 2009 and what we know today.

To summarize, we learned that:

1. The previous decade’s fast growth rates in broadband adoption was not sustainable into this decade;
2. Barriers to adoption are more complex than we thought;
3. The non-adoption problem is solvable. The research showed that non-adopters aren’t a hopeless group of (mostly old) people who dislike technology. The right kinds of programs can lure people to broadband;
4. Smartphones help close adoption gaps, but have limits as standalone access devices and are mostly used to add to users’ access means, not as a substitute for wireline.

The future challenge is how to sustain progress. To do that, I recommend:

• Developing a “best practice” tool-kit on broadband planning to help states and localities better engage with stakeholders to improve their broadband environment, and;
• Using reform of the Lifeline/Link-Up program to direct a portion of Lifeline funds to state and local planning and program activities to support broadband.

That is, the existing Lifeline model, which essentially is a “carrier to consumer” flow of funds, should be amended so it is a “community to consumer” model. Doing this will require legislative action.

Read the entire statement by clicking the icon below.

Although it has been in its new office location for nearly three weeks, The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies continued with old business Monday afternoon with its “Broadband, the Economy, and Driving Adoption” panel discussion.

In collaboration with Comcast, the Joint Center’s event gathered a panel of broadband data experts and pragmatists to identify the factors impeding high broadband adoption rates in low adopting communities, share real-world examples of the effects of broadband in low-income and minority communities, as well as lessons learned in convincing the aforementioned communities to adopt broadband.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski delivered remarks prior to the main discussion and emphasized the increase in prevalence of broadband across the country.

Read more at Politic365.

The Joint Center and Comcast Corporation held a Technology Policy Forum entitled Broadband, the Economy, and Driving Adoption on September 24, 2012.

In recent years, there have been two developments in technology adoption that are in tension with one another. On the one hand, home broadband adoption has increased only modestly since 2009. On the other, there has been a very rapid increase the adoption of Smartphones. This development presents questions for policymakers and stakeholders interested in the digital divide, namely: Does the leveling off of home broadband adoption and accompanying growth in Smartphone adoption represent a substitution effect? That is, are those without broadband at home simply turning to Smartphones instead and, if so, how does their Internet use relate to that of broadband users? Understanding the answers to these questions will be important to policymakers and those in the private sector interested in closing technology access gaps. To address the questions, this paper will rely on data drawn from a statewide telephone survey of Illinois residents fielded in February-March of 2012. The survey explored in detail how people get online (e.g., home broadband, tablets, Smartphones), what online activities they do (e.g., information searches, shopping, educational uses), and how they view the usefulness of different access means for carrying out tasks online.

FCC chairman Julius Genachowski praised Comcast Sept. 24 for a program that provided low-income Americans with discounted broadband service.

The program, Internet Essentials, originally targeted 2 million families that qualify for the free school lunch program to receive broadband service for $9.95 per month, $150 personal computers and digital literacy training. Early this year, Comcast expanded the program to 300,000 additional families that receive reduced price school lunches and doubled the speed of broadband service offered. Since launching the program in 2011, 400,000 families have taken advantage of Internet Essentials.

“I commend Comcast for stepping up its original commitment,” said Genachowski.

In remarks given at the Comcast Internet Essentials Event, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, in Washington, D.C., the chairman said it is important for eligible families to sign up for programs like Internet Essentials because being online “is essential to full participation in our 21st century economy.”

Read more at Broadcast Engineering.

Does anyone remember when the Obama administration promised to bring “true broadband [to] every community in America”? The Republican Party definitely does, and its 2012 platform criticizes the president for not making any progress on this pledge:

“The current Administration has been frozen in the past…. It inherited from the previous Republican Administration 95 percent coverage of the nation with broadband. It will leave office with no progress toward the goal of universal coverage—after spending $7.2 billion more. That hurts rural America, where farmers, ranchers, and small business manufacturers need connectivity to expand their customer base and operate in real time with the world’s producers.

So whatever happened to the Obama administration’s plan to expand broadband access, anyway? In one sense, the Republican critics are right. Universal broadband is still far from a reality. According to the Federal Communications Commission’s annual broadband report, released in August, there are still 19 million Americans who lack access to wired broadband. Only about 94 percent of households have broadband access. Obama hasn’t achieved his goal.

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“Getting to 100 percent is going to be a very difficult long-term goal, given the size of the U.S. landmass and the huge expense to reach those final couple of percentage points,” says John Horrigan of the Joint Center Media and Technology Institute. The same goes for increasing the adoption rate. “We’re not going to close that gap in five years.” Anyone hoping for universal broadband access in the near future might end up disappointed. But shorter-term upgrades are possible—and, indeed, appear to be happening.

Read more at The Washington Post.

Philadelphia city officials estimate 41 percent of residents cannot afford computers or to pay for Internet access. But Mayor Michael Nutter plans to change that.

Philadelphia plans to set up 48 computer centers - like the one at the People’s Emergency Center - in other shelters, recreation centers and libraries.

It will also distribute more than 5,000 laptops to low-income families and create public wifi spots for free wireless Internet access. The project will bring the city closer to digital equality. That's an important goal, according to Nicol Turner Lee, director of the Media and Technology Institute for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

“What started out as a digital divide, where at that time we were dealing with public access to computers and the Internet, has turned into a movement to advance digital inclusion and digital equality," says Lee, "that allows citizens to really realize the full benefit of how this tool and platform can improve the quality of their life.”

Read more and listen to a report at Voice of America and Daily News Corner.