As we did in our 2008 report on home broadband adoption, this report assesses barriers to broadband adoption through questions to dial-up users and non-internet users about why they either do not have broadband or lack internet access.

At a very broad level, there are clear demographic differences between broadband, dial-up, and non-internet users, as the following table demonstrates.

Relative to broadband users, dial-up users are older, have lower incomes, have lower levels of educational attainment, are more likely to be African American, and more likely to live in rural areas. For non-internet users, these same factors are also relevant, but in much more pronounced ways. A notable demographic difference in comparing dial-up with non-users is gender: dial-up users are more likely to be male and non-users more likely to be female.

Several of the factors common to non-broadband use are related. Those with lower levels of education have, on average, lower incomes, as do rural Americans, senior citizens, and African Americans. Two questions that arise are whether these different effects are independent of one another and, if they are, which ones are more strongly related to broadband adoption.

It turns out that a number of demographic or socio-economic factors are positively correlated with home broadband adoption, while others are negatively correlated, and that these relationships are independent of one another. The following shows those factors that are positively and negatively correlated with home broadband adoption.⁶They are listed in order of magnitude, that is, having a high income is a stronger predictor of having broadband than being a parent and not having graduated from high school is more strongly associated with not having broadband than living in rural America.

These relationships help reveal patterns in broadband adoption, but they are not ironclad determinants of whether a person has broadband or not. They do, however, indicate what elements are more (or less) important, at the level of demographic and socio-economic analysis, in thinking about broadband adoption. The report turns now to how attitudes about the internet also shape the broadband subscription decision.