Nielsen/NetRatings Study Reveals New York City Boasts the Most Broadband Users

Nielsen//NetRatings has released its Internet ratings report for the month of April 2001. The report states that New York dominates high-speed access with more than 10 percent of the country's broadband population living in the city and the surrounding metropolitan area.

Los Angeles follows closely behind with nearly six percent of the country's high-speed Internet users residing there, while San Francisco and its surrounding areas were only slightly behind with 5.7 percent. Boston, with 4.7 percent, and Seattle, with 3.6 percent, rounded out the top five broadband cities.

T.S. Kelly, director of Internet Media Strategies at NetRatings, offered some explanation to the pattern saying, "New York's building unit density has allowed for higher broadband usage growth, compared to the rest of the top local markets. The city's apartment dwellings provide a much bigger consumer target than regions that have predominantly single-family units."

According to NetRatings, Broadband access soared 134 percent in the past year. Nearly 16 million users accessed the Internet from home last month via cable modem, DSL, ISDN or LAN, compared to only 6.8 million in April 2000. "Broadband serves as the perfect platform for rich media and the 'always on' allure could help legitimize the Internet as a mainstream medium for content and advertising, allowing for faster and convenient access to news and entertainment on the Web," added Kelly.

According to NetRatings, the top five Internet properties for the month were AOL Time Warner in the #1 spot, followed by Yahoo!, MSN, Microsoft, and Lycos Network.

And in advertising, the deceptive banners that appear to be system warnings still reign in reach. Bonzi Software's "Warning: Your Internet Connection Is Not Optimized" banner was number one in both home and at work reach. Classmates's "Do Any of These People Look Familiar To You?" banner was second in both home and at work reach.