C|Net's News.com is reporting that US high-speed internet access adoption increased 33% in 2005 over the previous year. According to the article, over 50 million broadband lines are now in service.
The split between cable and DSL broadband did undergo a change during that year, however. While cable broadband still accounted for over 57.5 percent of last year's new connections, they did drop 3.5 percent from last year's new activations. DSL, with only 40.5 percent, gained 3.3 percent over the same time.
This isn't too surprising, as many consumers new to the market are being tempted with the lower-priced DSL service, despite those packages having an average slower download speed than entry-level cable packages. New services in areas where cable was the only broadband option available have helped the increase as well.
For most consumers, though, the differences between cable broadband and DSL mean little, and therefore DSL will continue to grow with it's current package offerings that are generally equal or even cheaper in monthly costs than most major dial-up services such as America Online or Earthlink.