We’ve just completed the latest phase (in the US) in our user surveys looking at multiplay services like broadband, digital TV and voice. A key question at the moment is of course how householders will make economies as incomes contract. Before the results were in we heard many suggestions that mobile services were the last thing people would cut, and that if anything had to go it would be broadband or digital TV. After all, can’t people watch TV on the Internet for nothing these days? So we were somewhat surprised to see more or less the opposite results. When asked how they would reduce spending, out of five alternative services (broadband, digital TV, fixed voice, mobile voice and mobile data) 48% of US respondents said they would drop mobile data completely, compared to 21% opting for fixed voice and 19% saying they would drop mobile voice. 21% said they would drop digital TV altogether, and only 10% said they would drop broadband. To be fair, we also asked whether people would scale back to a lower tier, and on this question digital TV looks likely to suffer most, with 41% saying they would choose this option. Clearly many people feel they are paying too much for pay TV services they don’t get value from. But overall, two thirds of people say they would leave their current broadband deal unchanged. So poor old, unsexy broadband, without the appeal of all those fancy handheld iDevices, turns out to be the one service people would be least likely to do without. Broadband it seems really has become an essential utility. Twitter: twitter.com/DavidMercer_SA Further Reading: 48% of Americans Would Drop Mobile Data Service Completely