KEY POINTS:
Internet companies are missing out on well-off baby-boomer customers who are yet to join the broadband revolution, research shows.
A report prepared by technology company Ericsson and the University of Sydney surveyed the post-war baby boomer generation - those aged between 46 and 61 - to discover why they were among the least likely to have broadband.
Around 50 per cent of New Zealand internet users now have broadband rather than dial-up connections.
Ericsson's Colin Goodwin said this market was a growth area for broadband but internet service providers needed to understand what drove baby-boomers to turn off dial-up and switch to broadband.
Goodwin said baby-boomers were mainly interested in broadband to stay in touch with family and friends, and to have internet available to help their children at school.
"One of the major drivers was the needs or demands of having children," said Goodwin. "Children, especially if they were just moving into high school, were viewed as a significant reason for having to have a computer with broadband."
This group also included those with grandchildren who saw it as necessary to have broadband available when the grandchildren visited or to stay in touch.
Goodwin said one of the most interesting aspects of the research was what the people surveyed did not say.
"No one said they wanted broadband because they wanted the latest technology or because they wanted to be cutting edge or they wanted to be cool or hip or fashionable."
That was not necessarily a surprise, said Goodwin, because those attitudes were more prevalent among early adopters of technology.
"The older adopters viewed broadband as normal and useful. So it wasn't this sense of being fashionable or keeping up with fashions so much as 'things have changed and now this is the way you did it'," said Goodwin.
Baby-boomers who had made the switch to broadband were doing so because of its reliability and faster browsing speeds.
Value for money and convenience were also big issues, especially the ability to use the phone while someone was on the internet.
However, they were not necessarily going to be attracted to a new pricing plan or package.
Goodwin said to attract those users who were hesitant to move to broadband, internet companies needed to show broadband as something normal rather than high-tech, and useful for practical tasks such as home banking.
"There certainly are zillions of people out there swapping movies and sound clips and so on but it's not so much this demographic," said Goodwin.
"This demographic is doing more ordinary things at the moment."
BABY-BOOMERS
* Baby-boomers are the post-war generation now aged between 46 and 61.
* Split into two groups - older boomers (54+) who have no kids at home and are "living in the moment", and younger boomers (46 to 53) who have older children and are "looking forward to tomorrow".
* Less likely to have broadband than most other age groups.
* Mainly using broadband to stay in touch with friends and family or to help with children's education.
