A little less than half — 48 percent — of adults in Salt Lake City reside in households with a broadband Internet connection, according to a recent Scarborough Research report.

Overall, broadband penetration has quadrupled since 2002, with San Francisco, Boston, San Diego and Hartford (CT) leading the nation in broadband market penetration. Each of those markets enjoy at least 60 percent penetration.

Meanwhile, the Salt Lake City markets ranks in the middle of the major metropolitan areas across the country. At that level, the city is joined by Colorado Springs-Pueblo, Oklahoma City, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Dayton, and Charlotte.SLC is just ahead of Portland (OR), Indianapolis, San Antonio, Tulsa, and Fresno but behind Denver, Columbus (OH), Milwaukee, Las Vegas, Tucson, and Phoenix.

The survey also shows that Internet usage seems to follow broadband penetration. Users in the top markets reported being online at least 10 hours or more per week on average. The survey also confirms a lot of anecdotal evidence. Broadband users are far more likely than any other Internet user group to download audio, podcasts and television broadcasts; visit online sites for newspapers; check statistics at Web sites for major league sports, and participate in fantasy sports leagues.

The growth in DSL connections has significantly outpaced cable modem hookups by a better than 3-1 margin. Similarly, the research firm .comScore recently reported that mobile broadband technology in the last quarter of 2007 grew two and half times over the same period a year earlier. However, portable mobile Internet access still remains a small fraction - just a bit more than one percent — of the total market usage. However, it topped 2 million for the first time in late 2007.

eMarketer estimates that broadband households in the United States will grow from 66.4 million in 2007 to 94.3 million in 2012. For marketing professionals and business owners, Ben Macklin, a senior analyst for eMarketer, raises the salient questions:

“Can broadband save people time? Can people save money with new broadband services? How can families, friends and colleagues better communicate? Does the technology foster personal creativity? Will it help me find love?”

Macklin also echoes what many recognize as telecommunication firms’ advantages over cable service providers. That is, the ability to provide voice, video, Internet and mobile to the tech-savvy consumer. And, telecommunication firms may also need to weigh the idea of “naked DSL” — which removes the need to pay for a phone line first. Macklin adds:

“DSL without line-rental is another reason for the telecom operators to market their own VoIP service, so consumers can bundle different voice options depending on their needs and budget. AT&T has already recognized this and has had good take-up of its mobile/broadband bundles.”

As what has become the custom in a Web 2.0 world, service providers ought to weigh seriously the consumers’ growing role, especially in making user-generated content viable from a revenue perspective.