The gap between urban and rural broadband adoption has also narrowed in recent years, according to the survey. Just over half (51%) of households in rural areas now use broadband at home, compared to 66% of households in urban areas. In 2001, 10.5% of urban households reported using broadband at home while only 4% of rural households reported using broadband at home. Among individual states, Utah, New Hampshire, Alaska and Massachusetts have the highest rates of broadband adoption at 73%, followed closely by New Jersey and Washington at 72%. Alabama and Mississippi were the only states to report broadband adoption rates of less than 50%, reporting in at 48% and 42% respectively.

More than one-third of households (38%) that didn't use broadband at home said they don't subscribe to it because they don't feel they need it. Another 26% of non-broadband users said they found broadband to be too expensive, while another 18% said they didn't have a computer adequate enough to handle broadband connectivity.

As broadband connectivity has continued to spread, the use of dial-up Internet services has continued to decline. Just 5% of U.S. households surveyed in 2009 reported using dial-up Internet services, less than half the 11% of households that reported using dial-up Internet at home in 2007. Among dial-up users, 41% said they didn't subscribe to broadband because it was too expensive while 20% said that broadband wasn't yet available in their area. Twenty-seven percent of dial-up users said they weren't interested in subscribing to broadband services.

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