The greater Providence area is one of the more wired places in the country, according to a survey released last week by Scarborough Research. The survey found that 46 percent of all adults here have Internet access, up from 41 percent last year, said Steve Deraita, a senior vice president in Scarborough’s New York headquarters.
The survey ranks the top 64 television markets by Internet access. The Providence area, which includes New Bedford, Mass., tied with Boston as the 15th most wired market in the country. Providence edged many larger cities such as New York and Chicago in the ranking.
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Michael Korber, co-owner of the Providence Internet service provider Big Dog Technologies Inc., said he was a little surprised by the survey results at first. But it makes sense, he said, if you put it in personal terms.
“Think about your own circle of associates and friends. How many people do you know that don’t have Internet access?” Korber said. “A couple of years ago you probably knew a lot of people who didn’t.”
Deraita said he isn’t surprised at all by Providence’s good showing in his company’s survey.
“New England tends to come up strong on these things,” he said. “You have to look at other factors that tend to indicate Internet use: higher incomes and higher educational levels.”
The high Internet penetration rate may represent a technologically savvy population, but it also means the number of potential Internet service provider customers that don’t already have access is dwindling. But Korber isn’t worried.
“That always happens near the end of the curve,” he said. “The number of new entrants will diminish as the market get saturated, but the thing about the Internet is it keeps changing. The services that are offered change and whole other markets open up.”
Topping Scarborough’s list are Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Austin, Seattle and Salt Lake City–where more than half of all adults have Internet access, according to the survey. Pittsburgh ranked last with an Internet penetration rate just shy of 31 percent.
Scarborough surveyed 170,000 adults from February 1998 to February 1999. The research only tracked the top U.S. television markets, but a study released by the U.S. Commerce Department in July ranked Internet access by state.
Rhode Island ranked 19th in the study with just over 21 percent of the state’s 102,000 households using the Internet. Massachusetts ranked 14th with statewide Internet penetration of just over 28 percent.
Alaska and New Hampshire lead the Commerce Department rankings with 44 percent and 37 percent, respectively, of all households there having Internet access. Arkansas and Mississippi landed at the bottom of the list with less than 15 percent of the homes in both states using the Internet.
The Commerce Department study also found a growing economic, racial and geographic divide between wired households and those without Internet access. Households with annual incomes of $75,000 or higher, for example, are more than 20 times more likely to have access than low-income families.
