“65% of the top broadband metropolitan areas posted robust growth in their high speed populations, signalling that, while some barriers exist to broadband expansion such as increasing costs, there is healthy room for additional growth and adoption of broadband,” said TS Kelly, director and principal analyst at NetRatings. “The largest broadband cities continue to grow.”
The fastest growing broadband local markets are also among the top broadband metropolitan areas and include New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Atlanta, Sacramento, Orlando, Minneapolis, Hartford, Portland, Phoenix and Baltimore. The high-speed online population of New York grew by 71% year on year to nearly 2.8 million broadband net users, Los Angeles grew 88% to 1.8 million, Boston grew 48% to 1.1 million broadband users and San Francisco grew 21% to 1.1 million users. PhiladelphiaÂ’s broadband population rose by 70% to 785,000 individual users.
“The sheer online populations of the fastest growing broadband markets continue to rise, pointing to continued demand for broadband over the last year despite the slowdown in overall internet growth in the US,” Kelly continued. “Because prices for high-speed connections pose a cost-barrier to most internet users, internet service providers would be wise to balance value, service, content and broadband development to encourage narrowband surfers to make that transition.”
