Survey confirms broadband users aren't stupid

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 12 March 2008 12:25

Opinion and Analysis

HMM quotes an In-Stat survey of “700 broadband homes in the United States [which] found that 83% of respondents were either very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their high-speed Internet access.”

Interestingly, the average monthly price for broadband in the US is US $38 per month, the average download speed is 3.8Mbps, and the average upload speed is just under 1Mbps at 980Kbps.

In-Stat’s analyst Mike Paxton is quoted as saying that: “As a general rule of thumb in the broadband world, higher bandwidth is better. Consumers readily recognize this fact, and many of them are actively looking for a broadband service that will increase the amount of bandwidth they can use.”

Given young people’s propensity to be fearless about downloading music and movies, despite many public actions from US and Australian copyright authorities, and despite the likelihood the parents of many of those young people probably don't know their kids are making pirate downloads, one can only wonder if illegal movie and music downloading at ever faster speeds is but one of the reasons why US consumers surveyed want ever faster broadband.

But we can’t fault AVRRA for releasing a survey that points to downloads being a hassle consumers would rather not bother with: they have a business that generally relies on walk through traffic to rent DVDs of movies and TV shows, both in DVD format, and increasingly in Blu-ray format as well.

The age of ubiquitous high-speed legal downloads of movies is still a few years away yet, but if rampant illegal downloading of movie downloads wasn’t a problem today, AVRRA’s statement would not be necessary.

Neither would all the ads in cinemas from copyright authorities pleading with consumers to stop downloading, an act which undeniably damages the incomes not only of AVRRA’s members, but actors, studios and all the many people who work behind the scenes producing the TV shows and movies we love to watch.