• by January 10, 2002

According to the Yankee Group's Technologically Advanced Family Survey, 7% of Internet users that own PCs at home choose not to access the Internet from home.

The top reasons why Internet users don't have Web access vary by household income, with expense being the primary factor separating access choices for low- and high-income households.

Rob Lancaster, analyst in the Internet Market Strategies Planning Service at the Yankee Group, said, ”Historically, there has been a group of Internet users in the United States that have chosen not to have Internet access at home. The Yankee Group anticipates that by 2005, there will be over 800,000 PC-owning households in the United States that still don't have PC-based Internet access.”

The number-one reason for not having Internet access in households with incomes of less than $25,000 was that access is too expensive, indicated by 72% of survey respondents. Additional reasons that low-income users do not choose home access include already having Internet access at work or school (12%), not wanting to tie up the phone line (10%), not wanting the children using the Web (6%), and difficulty of use (4%).

In contrast, users with incomes greater than $75,000 cite having Internet access at work or school (47% of respondents) as the primary reason they do not have home access. Additional reasons include expense (21%), not tying up the phone line (12%), difficulty of use (11%), and lack of interest in the World Wide Web (11%).