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BROADBAND
City folk seek out fast Web access
The number of u.s. homes with broadband Internet access jumped 134 percent in the past year, to 16 million, according to a recent report by Nielsen/NetRatings Inc., of Milpitas, Calif.
The report also indicated that nearly one-third of the homes with high-speed access were in five major metropolitan areas—New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and Seattle.
New York had more than 10 percent of all broadband home users, the report found, while Los Angeles was second with 5.9 percent.
Broadband users like to shop online
U.S. households with broadband Internet access are 60 percent more likely to buy online than are their dial-up counterparts, according to a new study from Centris Inc., a research company in Philadelphia.
The study also found that households with broadband access spend an average of 38 percent more on online purchases than dial-up households do and that twice as many households with broadband have annual incomes in excess of $100,000.
According to Centris, 5 million households switched on broadband in last years fourth quarter and this years first quarter, compared with 37 million households that plugged into dial-up access.
The Centris report said digital subscriber line households are less likely than cable-modem households to have multiple or big-screen TVs and are also less likely to rent videos or play video games.