There are more than 10m cable broadband punters in the US, according to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA). It claims some 75m households in the US have access to cable broadband services, with around two thirds of these owning a computer.
"Surpassing 10 million high speed Internet customers is a significant milestone for the cable industry and reflects continued steady growth in consumer demand for cable broadband services," said Robert Sachs, President and CEO, NCTA.
Anyhow, cable modem services have come a long way over the last five or so. At the end of 1996 there were just 10,000 punters using cable for hi-speed Net access.
At the end of 1998 that number had increased to 250,000 before jumping to 1.6m a year later. At the end of 2000 3.7m users were accessing the Net via a cable modem. Last year that figure doubled to 7.2m.
Despite these growing figures, Steve Balmer (Microsoft CEO) still can"t get broadband into his mansion. :D