News

At Home Worker Continues to Drive Broadband Adoption (23/7/2004)

Nearly a third of the US workforce, or 44 million individuals, is expected to regularly work at home on at least a part-time basis in 2004, reports In-Stat/MDR (http://www.instat.com). Wanting the convenience of being able to work at home, these telecommuters are adopting broadband as a necessary tool and have proven to be a driving force behind residential broadband adoption. Companies too are supporting this movement, with some firms going so far as to subsidizing the equipment and service expense to allow their employees to work from home.

"Telecommuters are an important, and growing broadband audience, and with their unique needs, represent an enormous opportunity," says Kneko Burney, Chief Market Strategist for In-Stat/MDR's Business Infrastructure & Services group. In addition, Burney notes that "soft" factors, such as the desire to stay closer to family, avoid the stress of the office, and cut back on commuting time, coupled with the need to extend the work day (due in part to downsizing), have translated to increased interest in telecommuting among employees - as well as businesses. In-Stat/MDR expects that the greatest growth in residential business broadband will occur in 2004. However, growth is expected to slow dramatically thereafter for both DSL and cable modems as the growth of full-time telecommuters stagnates and that of part-time daytime telecommuters slows down. "As growth declines, providers will be able to continue revenue growth through the promotion of fuller service bundles particularly targeted to this market," says Amy Cravens, a Senior Analyst for In-Stat/MDR.

In-Stat/MDR has also found that:

By 2008, the US business market is expected to support nearly 51 million telecommuters, nearly 14 million of which are expected to work from home full-time.

Telecommuters need and subscribe to different services compared to other residential Internet users.

Cable clearly outpaces DSL in terms of number of subscribers in the US business at-home workforce, however, there is a significant opportunity to offer DSL as a part of a bundled solutions for telecommuters.

The report, "Business Broadband@Home: High-speed Internet and the At-home Worker in the US" (#IN0401291IA),examines the factors contributing to this phenomenon, as well as the influence the telecommuter market has had on residential broadband services. Forecasts include US teleworker Internet subscribers, US teleworker total broadband subscribers, US teleworker DSL subscribers, and US teleworker cable subscribers.

www.instat.com