Home broadband adoption: Modest decline from 2013 to 2015

Broadband adoption in the United States has experienced a modest decline in recent years, falling from 70% in 2013 to 67% in 2015. These changes in home broadband adoption are concentrated among lower- to middle-income households, rural households and African Americans. There has also been a drop in home broadband adoption among parents of children under the age of 18. 68% of Americans now have a smartphone, an increase from 55% two years ago. This increase in smartphone adoption has compensated for the downturn in home broadband adoption in two ways:

More Americans are more likely to have both means of online access (in other words, a smartphone as well as home broadband service) than was the case two years ago. As of July 2015, 55% of adults report having both a smartphone and a home broadband subscription, up from 47% in 2013.
More Americans are “smartphone-only” in 2015 than was the case in 2013. Today 13% of adults rely on their smartphone for online access at home (that is, they have a smartphone but no home broadband subscription), compared with 8% in 2013.

The consequence is that the “advanced internet access” picture, which we define as having either a smartphone or a home broadband subscription, has changed little between 2013 and 2015. Today 80% of American adults have either a smartphone or a home broadband connection, a small change from 2013, when 78% had one of these two access means.