As prices
for broadband fall, the service will become more popular among
consumers in the lower economic spectrum. This will encourage
rent to own companies to improve online marketing by
incorporating high bandwidth features into their websites.
70 percent of US homes – some 86 million households – will have
broadband Internet access by 2012 according to JupiterResearch.
The company believes that price competition in the broadband
market will prompt nearly 36 million new broadband subscribers
over the next five years.
“As broadband becomes more attractive to consumers from an
economic perspective, current dial-up users will be more likely
to migrate to broadband service, and consumers who are new to
the online population will never take dial-up service in the
first place,” said Doug Williams, Analyst at JupiterResearch.
The number of dial-up Internet households – currently about 33
million – could drop by over two-thirds by 2012, but will not
disappear completely. However, as Web content increasingly
incorporates high-bandwidth applications such as video, the
value of dial-up access will become increasingly marginalized.
