• by Masha Geller , April 23, 2002

First, a quick update: Yahoo! has settled the $5 million lawsuit with Wylie Gustafson – the yodeler who claimed the company used his trademark yodel in ads without his consent. Terms of the out-of-court settlement were not disclosed, but Yahoo! said it would continue to use the yodel in its advertising and marketing materials.

That said, on to broadband. Jupiter Media Metrix reported today that while only 16% of U.S. online households subscribe to broadband, more than 24% of dial-up consumers are considering signing up for a broadband service within the next 12 months.

JMM analysts have found that these dial-up consumers actually favor utility over entertainment, even though companies catering to a broadband audience emphasize entertainment and rich-media applications. According to the report, titled “Broadband Audience: Maximizing Revenue from the New Mainstream,” for the first time in years, the top motivator of dial-up users planning to switch to broadband is a persistent “always on”' connection (59%). Less important are entertainment-related features such as the ability to view quality video (26%) and listen to audio (15%).

Dylan Brooks, senior analyst at JMM says broadband connectivity will soon be the rule, not the exception, for Internet users. JMM says that broadband has at last passed a critical inflection point in the U.S. -- household subscriptions nearly doubled last year, from just over five million to 10.4 million. Moreover, individual broadband users, including those at work, totaled 38 million in 2001 -- 32% of at-home and at-work Internet users.

According to Jupiter analysts, broadband households have long been going online: 60% have an online tenure of more than two years. However, households that have come online in the past 24 months make up a growing portion of the broadband audience: 27% in summer 2001 compared with 17% in summer 2000.