Feb, 2002 : Broadband Grew Steadily in First Half of 2001-FCC

📅 February 11, 2002 - U.S. households and small businesses have signed up for high-speed Internet access at a steady pace in the first half of 2001,according to a Federal Communications Commission report released Thursday.

The FCC found that 9.6 million customers had signed up for high-speedInternet access by the end of June 2001, an increase of 36 percent over Jan.2001.
Broadband connections are now easily available, the FCC said, with 78percent of the nation's zip codes receiving service from at least oneprovider, and 58 percent being serviced by multiple providers. Residentialand small-business subscriptions grew at a rate of 51 percent in the sameperiod. Seven percent of U.S. households signed up for broadband services byJune, up from 4.7 percent in Jan.
"Advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed in a reasonableand timely manner," the FCC began the beginning of the report, which wasbased on standardized data from broadband providers.
The new report found cable is most popular broadband medium, with 5.2million lines signed up. DSL followed with 2.7 million connections, whereassatellite and other wireless connections numbered only 200,000, but wasgrowing at a rate of 73 percent.
Broadband access was available in nearly all of the most densely populatedzip codes, the report found, but only half of the most sparsely populatedareas were able to sign up. The report also found a gap between richer andpoorer areas. Broadband subscribers were found in 96 percent of the richestareas, but only 59 percent of the poorest ones reported at least onebroadband subscriber. However, that gap is narrowing, according to the FCC,which notes that its last report found that only 42 percent of the poorestareas had broadband customers.