Smartphone users hang up on broadband

You get your internet at home by subscribing to a high speed broadband service, as do a majority of your fellow Americans. That is unless you’re among the 1 in 4 adults who’ve ditched or passed on home broadband. And many of you who’ve come to that decision have found what you deem a suitable substitute: your smartphone.

A Pew Research Center survey found that 37% of respondents indicated that when using the internet they primarily do so on a smartphone, nearly double the 19% who answered the same way in 2013.

And 45% of the non-broadband crowd say that their smartphone lets them do everything they need to do online, up substantially from the 27% who said so in 2015.

In fact, Pew reports the share of nonbroadband users who say their smartphone is the most important reason for not having a high-speed internet connection where they live has nearly doubled over the same time period, from 12% to 23%.

The percentage of non-broadband adopters who cited price as a barrier, dropped from 33% in 2015 to 21% today.

In the meantime, while the growth of smartphone use for a cyber-connection has grown across all age groups, young adults are more likely to reach for a handset when they go online. Fifty-eight percent of those ages 18 to 29 mostly use the phone for such a purpose, up from 41% in 2013.

As you might expect, income levels also are a factor in whether people subscribe to home broadband. The report found that 73% of U.S. adults say they subscribe to broadband internet services at home, but the number climbs to 92% among adults in households with incomes of $75,000 or more annually.

By contrast, in households where the yearly income is south of $30,000, the share of broadband subscribers drops to 56%.

That 36-point gap in broadband adoption between the highest- and lowest-income groups is substantially larger than the 24-point gap in smartphone ownership between these groups, the report says.

Educational differences show a nearly identical pattern.