Ministry releases Internet-usage survey

A total of 3.94 million Taiwanese households, or 57 percent of households nationwide, have Internet access, up from 53 percent last year, a survey released by the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.

The "2003 Taiwanese Household Information Technology Application" survey, conducted by the Institute for Information Industries (資策會), found that although the Internet penetration rate among households for this year was higher than last year, the growth rate is much lower than last year's, which was 19 percent.

Among families that have Internet access, 73 percent used broadband to connect to the Internet, the survey said.

In terms of regional usage, Taipei City and Kaohsiung City are the most Internet-dense cities, accounting for 70 percent and 60 percent of Internet usage by household, respectively, while central Taiwan came in third place with 50 percent and southern Taiwan 48 percent, the survey said.

Net surfing, checking e-mail, reading news and uploading or downloading files are the top activities users perform while accessing the Internet, the survey said.

The survey also found that Internet facilities have improved, as 45 percent of households polled said they had no difficulty accessing the Internet, up from 34 percent last year. However, 55 percent complained about slow or unstable connections.