His broadband v. modem statements are definitely on the mark as far as I'm concerned. When I had dial up access, I would save up sites that I wanted to visit files I wanted to download (the smaller, the better), and do it all at once, when I had a good connection and all that. Since I got broadband, I surf whenever a site comes to mind, grab that 100+ MB file when I hear about it, and just let the download finish.

I know that I wouldn't be as "into" the Internet now than if I was on dialup. Dialup just makes things convienent enough to be useful, but not to make it a new way of doing things.

-Posted by milbertus on March 11, 2003 08:04 PM

These kind of statistics are always kind of strange for me to read. I realize its probably a Boston-area thing, but I know exactly two people that use modems (uncle and grandfather) compared to scores with broadband. Since getting online in 94, I don't think I've spent more than a cumulative total of 4 or 5 months without DSL or faster, and never a single longer stretch than a month. I wonder sometimes if I would have the patience to live on a modem or if I would just get alot more (book) reading done (and likely have an entirely different career).

I basically put broadband on a similar level as running water in terms of necessity (maybe higher, I can buy water at the supermarket). I'm not boasting here, I'm just realizing that I have become something that was probably only science fiction 15-20 years ago...

-Posted by Eric on March 12, 2003 12:33 AM

from what I've seen, once mainstream broadband becomes available in a given area (eg attbi cable instead of joe's wireless that no one's ever heard of, or the dsl company that's changed its name 12 times in as many months and promises more than it delivers) it gets adopted quickly by people like us, and we convince the people around us to get it... and other people see them having it and decide to try it out and see what it's about, and never look back.

Right now, I know 3 people locally who are online with a dialup while living in an area where they can get cable. One only uses the net to email once in a while, one's still trying to decide what kind of router to get, the other says it's too expensive.

There are several (mostly elderly) people in my apartment complex who are on dialup rather than cable, but we're going to fix that soon by setting up an inexpensive wireless network. :-)

Anyway, if he's looking at all users, yeah, it's vastly modem based. If you look just at areas that a major internet provider services with broadband, those percentages will drastically change.

-Posted by JC on March 12, 2003 11:35 AM

Does anyone know if broadband people buy more stuff online? I realize this would be pretty hard to figure out, but if a clear conclusion was made it could have a major in the e-commerce world.

-Posted by Eric on March 12, 2003 01:44 PM

"A greater percentage of broadband users buy online vs. dialup users. These users spend 14% more per buyer, and buy more often. Broadband users constitute 38% of visitors but half of dollars. (Note: includes home and work users.) "

http://sellitontheweb.com/ezine/news0556.shtml

Not sure how accurate that is, though.

In my own personal experience, I'd only made one purchase online (airline tickets) before I got broadband... but since getting broadband pretty much coincided with starting a new job and a doubling of my income, I'm probably an unusual case.

I'm sure it increases the porn subscriptions, if nothing else. Isn't that why Joe User gets broadband, anyway?

-Posted by JC on March 13, 2003 12:31 AM