SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 9: Broadband, the high-speed Internet connection that technology gurus promised would make the Internet as ubiquitous as electricity, is starting to go the way of other high-tech promises: nowhere.

ExciteAtHome, North America’s largest broadband provider, announced this month it was going out of business in February. Excite provides high-speed access to the Internet over cable television hookups for 4.1 million users.

It is not clear how many ExciteAtHome users will be transferred to other high-speed connections as the company’s assets are supervised by a bankruptcy judge.

With computer sales slumping and the last of the dot-com companies selling off their bankrupt assets at grim auctions in Silicon Valley, tech investors had been betting that a high-speed, always on connection to the Internet would the road to revival.

But the Excite trevails have brought to a forefront the shakiness of this savior.

“It certainly hasn’t been the cure-all everyone thought it would be,” said Dylan Brooks, a senior analyst with technology consultancy Jupiter Media Metrix. “Broadband has a lot of potential, but first someone has to make it work.”

Broadband, which pumps data to users at a rate of 50 to 100 times that of regular telephone modems, has the potential of carrying movies, music and even telephone calls into homes and businesses. Though it was initially a hit, enthusiasm for the service has been flattening.

According to analysts, new US broadband subscribers had slowed to a 14 percent growth per quarter, down from a 34 percent growth rate seen last year.

The group, called the Information Technology Association of America said that although high-speed Internet, or broadband, is available in much of the United States, few consumers are using it; meanwhile, the lack of customers is discouraging the creation of more high-speed services over the Internet.

“Broadband service is available to over 70 percent of US households, but the take up rate among consumers stands at about 11 percent,” said ITAA president Harris Miller.—AFP