Thirty-One Percent of U.S. Households Lack a Broadband Connection

Despite the growing popularity of connected devices in the home, including smart devices, streaming media players, and smart TVs, 31 percent of US households do not currently have a broadband connection (25Mbps per second download speed or greater). This equates to roughly 100 million consumers, totaling nearly one-third of the U.S. population, and the vast majority of these consumers are in rural markets. This lack of access is in turn impacting the adoption of advanced technologies across much of America’s heartland. Despite many homes still having the ability to connect to the internet, consumers with single-digit megabits per second of download speed will struggle to benefit from activities that require these speeds, such as streaming video solutions or connecting to a remote network to telecommute.