Study Finds Lower Income Families Slow To Add Broadband Service

SAN JOSE (KCBS) - Newly released census data shows that there are still significant socio-economic gaps when it comes to residential broadband use.

The new study shows that broadband usage has increased more than seven-fold since 2001. However, the rate of broadband adoption his much stronger among high wage earners.

High tech industry analyst Tim Bajarin said the new data is not surprising.

KCBS' Mike Colgan Reports:

"More and more people are online and a lot of what we would call upper-end, meaning they have more expendable income.  They have been willing to jump on the broadband wagon," Bajarin said.  "The reason that a lot of people want higher speed data from the cable companies is because more and more of the content is becoming dense in the sense that it's now video, it's images, it has big files. The day of just having simple dial-up just doesn't work well."

The census study also found African American and Hispanics are much less likely to go online using a high speed connection.

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