From “Americans have mixed views on policies encouraging broadband adoption,” on pewresearch.org: 

These policy debates are occurring at a time when roughly nine-in-ten Americans describe high-speed internet service as either essential (49 percent) or important but not essential (41 percent). Only about one-in-ten Americans say that high-speed internet access is either not too important (6 percent) or not important at all (3 percent).

Republicans and Democrats tend to agree that broadband is important, but Democrats are more likely to say it is essential: 58 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners describe broadband in this way, compared with 38 percent of Republicans and Republican leaners.