Consumer Usage of Broadband Internet Services - Adoption, Usage, and Global Impact of Broadband Technologies - page 203

home relative to that of having fixed broadband
decreases with family size, but that probability
increases for families with at least five individu-
als; 13 the minimum probability of not having home
Internet access instead of having fixed broadband
Internet access is for a household size between
four and five members 14 .
The results also indicate that income (using a
proxy by a dummy variable for two or more cars
and owning a dishwasher) and education are the
primary factors related to the choice between fixed
and mobile broadband.
Finding differences across end-users who
choose multiple types of access is a valuable goal
to help determine the degree to which such access
types are substitutes. In this respect there exists
limited support for the notion that multiple access
types are indeed substitutes: of approximately
8,600 respondents in the 2006 BCS survey, only
151 (1.76 percent) report having more than one
type of home Internet access, and 80 percent of
those had only two types. Still, it is useful to at-
tempt to ascertain reasons for multiple modes of
access to better understand substitutability across
such modes, as these respondents indicate that
various access types are not perfect substitutes. It
is possible that fixed broadband might be deemed
more valuable for those with a fixed location who
want higher bandwidth, while mobile may be
more useful for those who also are more mobile.
Nomadic users often are also fixed broadband
subscribers or mobile broadband subscribers. This
results from the growth of home WiFi networks
and the converged device market, which in Europe
has grown from about 11 million units sold in 2005
to more than 15 million in 2006. Furthermore,
the converged device customer profile has been
changing in Europe. As recently as 2005, most
high-end smartphones were used primarily for
business. Now consumers are using these con-
vergence devices, such as the BlackBerry Pearl
or Palm Treo 750, for web browsing, checking
personal e-mail, managing family schedules, and
the like. This has happened in part because of a

decrease in prices: T-Mobile UK has given the
BlackBerry Pearl away for free with some wire-
less calling plans and, in 2008, T-Mobile Germany
launched the iPhone in packages priced for the
residential user. 15
Figure 2 illustrates the education and income
level (by proxy) of those respondents reporting
two or more types of Internet access in their homes
in 2006. Those reporting multiple access types
generally have a higher level of education, and
also greater income. While income is expected
to be a significant predictor of multiple modes of
access, the link between multiple modes of ac-
cess and education is not as predictable. Results
indicate that age falls steadily with an increase in
the number of types of access (from an average
age of 36.23 years to 31.29). 16 Regional variations
exist as well; noticeably, Madeira has about the
same number of homes with two, three, or more
types of access and Algarve has only one type.
Being island regions, the Açores and Madeira
might be expected to be similar; however, they
do not appear to have the same options available.
It remains to be determined why individuals need
more than one access type; in other words, for a
small subset of our sample database it is clear
that types of access are not perfect substitutes;
there must be value in different forms of access.

Analysis of Usage Patterns

The value of understanding usage patterns lies in
finding potential differences among consumers
for various broadband technologies. Usage is an
indirect indicator of the value consumers place
on their Internet access; that value is expected to
vary across types of consumers (i.e., across ages
and education levels) as well as across types of
applications (i.e., filing taxes versus downloading
music). In aggregate, hours of use are approxi-
mately 18 hours per week for fixed broadband
and 21 hours per week for mobile broadband.
The most frequently reported number of hours
of use for fixed users was 10 hours per week (18