Internet is no longer a luxury item, it’s become an integral part of life for most people, and there is an increasing need for faster speeds and a network that can handle the capacity needed to maintain online habits. The US has 88.5% of its population now using the internet and 39% of that crowd uses wireless internet at home. All this new demand for wireless leaves leading companies in a race to bring the next generation of wireless networks.
There is a clear line in the sand of what group is driving the market to wireless, Millennials. Recent US Census Bureau numbers show that 55% of the younger generation are relying on their wireless connection while 69% of the older generation tends to connect via broadband. When you dig further into those numbers you find that 60% of the Millennials surveyed were between the ages of 18-24 while 77% of the older generation were ages 55-64. The same report also pointed out that households using wireless carriers as its sole internet provider doubled from 10% to 20% between 2013 to 2015. This shows a trend in the market that likely favors mobile in the future. When looking at a survey done by Report Linker you see the biggest reason for the trend is unlimited data plans. When the survey asked if participates had a broadband connection, 31% of those answering no confirmed that notion.
In other numbers shown by the survey, Verizon and Comcast were leading the pack of their respective categories when it came to which internet provider people are actually using. Comcast held the larger margin at 39% with its next closest competitor falling behind at 9%. That, however, could be a little misleading as 27% of those asked why they chose who they chose stated it was because they had no other choices available. Furthermore, 36% of that 27% were those with a broadband connection. If mobile continues to grow, it could cut into that 36% by simply being another choice. When it’s all said and done 7 out of 10 people were actually happy with their provider, 81% were satisfied with the reliability, and 67% said the pricing was fine. The survey had 500 online respondents representative of the general US population, connected to the internet at home and was conducted February 22nd-27th.
