US Internet Connections Hit 321 Million in 2014; Mobile Drives Data, Voice Growth

The total number of U.S. Internet connections grew 9 percent to 321 million from December 2013 to December 2014, with mobile connections growing 13 percent to 223 million and fixed connections growing 2 percent to 98 million, said an FCC report released Wednesday on Internet access services. Of mobile connections, 58 percent had downlink speeds of at least 6 Mbps, 23 percent had 3-6 Mbps and 19 percent had less than 3 Mbps. Of fixed connections, 44 percent had downlink speeds of at least 25 Mbps, 28 percent had 10-25 Mbps, 19 percent had 3-10 Mbps and 8 percent had less than 3 Mbps, the report said. Only 3 percent of residential census blocks had at least three providers offering 25 Mbps service (not necessarily to all housing units), 20 percent had two such providers, 47 percent had one and 30 percent had none. Sixty-one percent of census blocks had at least three providers offering 10 Mbps, 28 percent had two and 10 percent had one. A report on voice phone services said there were 323 million mobile subscriptions in December 2014, 73 million retail switched access lines, and 54 million interconnected VoIP subscriptions. From 2011 to 2014, interconnected VoIP subscriptions grew at a compound annual growth rate of 14 percent, mobile voice subscriptions grew at a compound annual growth rate of 3 percent and retail switched access lines declined by 12 percent per year, it said. Of 127 million wireline retail voice service connections (switched and VoIP), 70 million were residential and 57 million were business. ILECs had 69 million wireline retail voice service connections (58 million switched access lines and 11 million VoIP) and non-ILECs had 57 million connections (over 14 million switched access lines and 43 million VoIP), it said.