Pew: smartphone-dependent Americans increases to 20 percent

One in five Americans use their smartphones for home Internet access instead of a traditional wireline broadband service, according to a new report from Pew Research Center. The study found that smartphone-dependent households are more likely to be low-income, African-American, or Hispanic. The number of smartphone-dependent households is up seven percent from 2015. See a breakdown of the study’s smartphone findings below and read the full Pew study here.

A 2017 CTC Technology report concluded that, for both technical and business reasons, wireless technologies are not now, and will not be in the near- to medium-future, adequate alternatives or substitutes for wireline broadband. Read the CTC Technology study here.

Links:

Pew: Smartphone-Only Homes Grow, Now 1 in 5 Use Smartphones Exclusively for Internet Access (Telecompetitor, May 1, 2018)

CTC Technology report: mobile service not an adequate substitute to robust wireline broadband (Speed Matters, Oct. 10, 2017)