Challenges for a broadband service strategy in rural areas: A Romanian case study

Broadband network deployment plays an important part in the strategic policies in Europe to promote growth and innovation in all sectors of the economy in addition to social and territorial cohesion. In compliance with existing community policies, Romanian strategies in this field seek to provide the necessary support for broadband connectivity in rural areas. The goal of this study is to define a rural end-user profile to plan the most appropriate broadband service strategy from both a technical and a marketing perspective. Our empirical research involves an exploratory survey conducted in rural areas in northwestern Romania (n=1040 respondents). The findings reveal low levels of customer satisfaction and users more interested in data transfer than voice or video applications. Given this rural user profile, simulations of network traffic were conducted. The simulation results suggest that WLANs are the most suitable solution for the “last mile” broadband segment.     

Broadband adoption and availability: Impacts on rural employment during COVID-19

Amidst COVID-19-related stay-at-home orders, the economy moved largely online and broadband internet became more important than ever. This paper explores the relationship between broadband and employment rates during April and May 2020 in rural U.S. counties. We use two broadband dimensions: infrastructure availability rates and household adoption rates. We use a two-stage least squares approach to address endogeneity and control for socioeconomic, demographic, and pandemic-related factors. Results show broadband availability and wired broadband adoption both had significant, positive impacts on the employment rate. Our findings suggest both broadband adoption and availability may be associated with economic benefits in rural America.     

The Indian broadband plan: A review and implications for theory

Given the benefits of ubiquitous broadband deployment and availability that include economic growth, participation in the Internet economy and increased competitiveness, several countries have launched major national initiatives to accelerate broadband deployment including supporting such initiatives often as a part of their fiscal stimulus plans. These include Afghanistan, Australia, Brazil, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore, Sweden, UK and USA and the European Union as a whole.     

Does strategy matter? A comparison of broadband rollout policies in Finland and Sweden

This study investigates broadband policies applied in Finland and Sweden with special reference to the geographical coverage of the required network infrastructure. These two Nordic countries are seen as forerunners in the development of the information society, and they also share several other similarities bearing relevance to the take-up of broadband. However, they have applied different broadband strategies: Sweden, one of the first-movers in this field, already launched its ambitious and interventionist national ICT infrastructure program in 2000, whereas the Finnish broadband strategy, published in 2003, largely relies on market forces. The present article analyses these broadband strategies, and attempts to identify their actual differences. It appears that the Finnish strategy caused temporary higher broadband prices and a somewhat slower rollout. However, the current results of the two countries’ strategies in terms of coverage and usage levels, as well as end-user prices, do not indicate any significant long-term policy-induced impacts.     

Willingness to pay and pricing for broadband across the rural/urban divide in Canada

Efforts to close the rural/urban digital divide in Canada have reached new heights in the wake of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and “stay-at-home” policies. Yet the extent to which the rural/urban digital divide extends to pricing and demand for broadband services is not well understood. Using a dataset of more than 4700 residential survey responses from southern Ontario, Canada, we assess the disparity in pricing and willingness to pay for broadband across rural and urban households. Our results suggest that rural users face higher installation and monthly fees while receiving a significantly inferior quality of service than their urban counterparts. Demand among rural users for improved broadband access is also higher than for urban users. These results may strengthen the business case for expanding broadband services into rural areas and/or supporting justification for public subsidization. Our analysis also suggests higher economic net benefits from prioritizing majority access at current federal service objectives rather than investing in a small number of users to receive higher quality broadband.     

State broadband policy: Impacts on availability

We use a county-level panel dataset from 2012 to 2018 to assess the impacts of various state policies on total and rural broadband availability in the United States. The primary dependent variable is the percentage of residents with access to 25 Megabits per second (MBPS) download and 3 MBPS upload speeds via a fixed connection, with alternative specifications considering other aspects of availability such as technology type and competition. We control for the main determinants of Internet availability such as income, education, age, and population density. Our policy variables come from the newly released State Broadband Policy Explorer from the Pew Charitable Trusts and individual contacts from the nationwide State Broadband Leaders Network. Our primary policies of interest are those related to: (1) availability of state-level funding, (2) existence of a state-level broadband office/task force with full-time employees, and (3) restrictions on municipal/cooperative broadband provision. We find a positive and significant impact of state-level funding programs on general (and fiber) broadband availability, and a negative impact of municipal/cooperative restrictions. The findings are similar when the analysis is restricted to the rural portions of counties.     

Is broadband the future? An analysis of broadband technology potential and diffusion

This paper examines the policy issues surrounding residential broadband technology, discusses how broadband extends Internet capabilities and at what cost, and makes recommendations for future applications of broadband. It focuses on residential broadband access, and in examining the future of broadband, it identifies three areas of concern: regulatory tendencies and tensions in the US, international diffusion of broadband, and the overall consumer appeal of broadband content. Specific policy recommendations center on providing regulation that guarantees open access, enforces reasonable pricing plans, and encourages innovative content.     

Evaluation of USDA's Broadband Loan Program: Impacts on broadband provision

Since 2002 the USDA's Broadband Loan Program has directed more than $1.8 billion in subsidized loans to help expand broadband access in under-served rural communities. Program eligibility criteria included having a population of 20,000 or fewer, having no prior access to broadband, and providing a minimum matching contribution of 15% by recipients of the loan. Loans were extended mainly to small telecommunications services firms at varying (subsidized) interest rates. We evaluate on the effectiveness of the Loan Program in increasing broadband availability in target locations. Specifically, we analyze whether loan receipt increases the number of broadband providers in a particular location, using various count panel methods. Our analysis is conducted at the ZIP code level over the period 1999–2008; it uses broadband provider data from the FCC's Form 477, and loan data from the Rural Utility Service (the implementing agency for the Broadband Loan Program). Results indicate that ZIP codes receiving broadband loans did in fact experience modest, statistically significant increases in the number of broadband providers vis-à-vis non-recipient locations; that average marginal effects on treated ZIP codes were approximately 0.092 additional broadband providers annually; and that these benefits accrued more towards rural locations than urban locations, in conformance with the intent of the program.     

A preview of the broadband fabric: Opportunities and issues for researchers and policymakers

The Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (DATA) Act signed into law in March 2020 requires the development of a national “broadband serviceable location fabric (BSLF)” containing georeferenced information on all locations where fixed broadband could be installed. This represents a significant shift from prior datasets, where broadband availability was gauged from the estimated number of people/households in each Census Block (i.e., without geolocations). The inclusion of agricultural structures is particularly important, since broadband investment in agricultural zones has been limited to date. We use an early version of the BSLF for the state of Oklahoma, produced by CostQuest Associates, to demonstrate the opportunities and issues that may arise for broadband researchers and policymakers as the DATA Act becomes reality. We highlight four main takeaways: (1) consideration of non-residential units greatly impacts overall availability estimates; (2) data quality (and quantity) varies greatly across counties; (3) BSLF residential unit counts differ from FCC or Census estimates; and (4) practitioners will still need service-area shapefiles/addresses from providers to use the fabric most effectively.     

Population grid-based assessment of the impact of broadband expansion on population development in rural areas

This paper estimates the effect of the expansion of broadband infrastructure, which enables high-speed Internet, on population development in panel of Finnish areas in the period 2010–2018. The study differs from previous studies in that it uses accurate statistics on the availability of broadband in 1 km * 1 km population grids. Therefore, the impact of broadband availability on rural development is evaluated more accurately than previously. The results of the Difference-in-difference (DiD) regression analysis show that the availability of broadband reduces depopulation of remote and sparsely populated rural areas. In this respect, the telecommunication policy in Finland has been successful, and the findings encourage the expansion of broadband infrastructure in rural areas.     

Economic growth and broadband access: The European urban-rural digital divide

This paper estimates the regional effects of high-speed broadband coverage on economic growth in a panel of 1348 regions across all European Union Member States between 2011 and 2018. We distinguish between different connectivity speed levels by aggregating the available regional data across all existing broadband technologies, and investigate how regional differences in the contribution of broadband coverage to real economic growth can quantitatively explain the persistence of the European urban-rural digital divide. In order to make our results robust to endogeneity and disaggregated data availability issues, we employ a bootstrap-based bias correction for the dynamic fixed effects estimator. We find that expansions in the provision of lower-speed broadband access accelerated annual per capita growth in both urban and rural regions through diminishing returns to scale, but that the effects were weaker in those regions characterized by larger ruralization. High-speed broadband coverage, on the contrary, could only be significantly related to rural economic growth and had no impact within their urban counterparts. We find evidence that the costs of these high-speed rural connectivity expansions had not yet been offset, but that they exhibit increasing returns to scale with cut-off levels nearing full coverage. These results indicate that the high-speed digital expansion of rural Europe is a potential gamechanger for further rural development policies through its role as a general-purpose infrastructure, and consequently argue in favour of increased efforts to close the urban-rural digital gap.     

Impacts of the Broadband Initiatives Program on broadband adoption and home telework

This study investigates the impacts of the Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP), established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009, on growth in broadband adoption and use of home telework. We find robust positive impacts across multiple econometric models and methods using census tract-level data in first differences. Across models and methods, the estimated average impact of BIP is in the range of 1.1–3.0 percentage point increase in the share of households adopting broadband and 0.2 to 0.4 percentage point increase in the share of workers using home telework. The estimated impacts of BIP represent roughly one-fourth to two-thirds of the average increase in broadband adoption and one-third to two-thirds of the average increase in home telework in the study tracts during the study period. The impacts of BIP vary across geographic contexts. Broadband and home telework adoption are also affected by prior levels of broadband availability, adoption, and telework, and by demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the population and the industrial structure of the economy.     

Implementing policy on next-generation broadband networks and implications for equity of access to high speed broadband: A case study of Australia's NBN

Next generation telecommunications infrastructure is expanding and supporting rapid growth of broadband technologies and a digital economy. In this context, digital information and communications technologies (ICTs) are of increasing importance as a means for people to gain access to health or social services, employment opportunities, information and social networks. In this article we draw on our recent case study research to examine the policy (and politics) shaping implementation of Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN) and its likely effects on equity of access to high speed broadband (HSB) services. We monitored NBN policy and implementation from 2015 to 2018 through policy documents, reports, and media. To assess likely effects of NBN policy on implementation and subsequently on equity of access to HSB we: a) applied a framework defining four elements of equity of access; and b) analysed stakeholder views drawn from media articles and 22 interviews with experts on NBN policy including politicians, government staff, and industry representatives. We found that equity considerations competed with political and commercial imperatives during the rollout of the NBN. This resulted in positive and negative consequences for equity of access to HSB, with a change in policy and implementation in 2013 bringing greater risks to equity of access. The case study provides a framework for considering equity in the implementation of next generation telecommunications infrastructure and highlights the importance of considering equity in the evaluation of telecommunications infrastructure.     

The phoneless in the broadband age: A pilot study in Massachusetts

Questions about universal service continue to evolve as information and communication technology advances, bringing new platforms, services, and business models. Concerns about exclusion remain, particularly in times of transition to new technologies and platforms. While the universal service literature is rich in econometric studies that indicate the drivers of household telephone penetration, without qualitative data directly from those households that experience phonelessness, we cannot understand the causes well enough to design effective policy. This research explores why people are phoneless in the current environment of increased platform and business model choices. Particular focus is placed on understanding the relationship between new technology, platforms and business models and phonelessness. Data is obtained from surveys completed by approximately 100 individuals in Massachusetts who are currently without any voice connection, either landline or mobile, or have been sometime in the past ten years. The survey includes questions about different platforms and communication services in order to learn how they have led to phonelessness. The results of the pilot study show that the vast majority of phoneless households do not choose to be phoneless. The study also shows that the most frequent causes of phonelessness in this population are unemployment and unpredictable bills. Many instances of unpredictable bills leading to phonelessness occur with wireless service or bundled services but are the result of business models for service provision rather than the platforms themselves. Prepaid wireless service is a market-based solution that helps households prevent phonelessness by reducing unpredictability. Universal service policy for voice and broadband can better reduce exclusion with greater attention to business models and practices versus technologies and platforms, and increased emphasis on prepaid service to reduce unpredictability.     

Access regulation, competition, and broadband penetration: An international study

The evolution of broadband penetration has shown substantial differences between OECD countries. This paper empirically investigates to what extent different forms of regulated competition explain these international differences. It distinguishes three modes of competition between broadband internet access providers that result from regulatory policies: (1) inter-platform competition; (2) facilities-based intra-platform competition; and (3) service-based intra-platform competition. In most countries these forms of competition co-exist although their intensity varies from country to country. Intra-platform competition may differ among countries depending on the degree of mandatory access obligations imposed by the regulator on the dominant network firm. Based on a sample of OECD countries, the analysis finds that inter-platform competition has been a main driver of broadband penetration. The two types of intra-platform competition have a considerably smaller effect on the broadband penetration. Linking these findings back to access regulation suggests that the “stepping stone” or “ladder of investment” theories might not provide the justification to impose extensive mandatory access obligations on DSL incumbents.     

The broadband bonus: Estimating broadband Internet's economic value

How much economic value did broadband Internet create? Despite the importance of this question for national policy, no research has estimated broadband's incremental contribution to U.S. GDP by calibrating against historical adoption and incorporating counterfactuals. This study provides benchmark estimates for 1999 through 2006 and finds that broadband accounts for $28 billion of the $39 billion observed in 2006. Depending on the estimate, households generated $20-$22 billion of broadband revenue and approximately $8.3-$10.6 billion was additional revenue created between 1999 and 2006. Consumer surplus accounted for $4.8-$6.7 billion of this amount, which is not measured in GDP. An Internet-access Consumer Price Index would have to decline by 1.6-2.2% per year for it to reflect this unmeasured value. These estimates differ from existing benchmarks by an order of magnitude and relate to several policy debates.     

Factors of broadband development and the design of a strategic policy framework

The paper analyses the household use of broadband technology and services in EU countries in an attempt to find the main reasons which explain the differences seen among countries. With the use of factor analysis, the underlying factors are identified as: (1) enablers and means; (2) the use of services; and (3) the ICT sector's development. Based on these findings, a two-dimensional framework that enables the classification of policy actions depending on the influencing factor and type of influence is developed. The framework can be used to analyse what is the appropriate set of policies at the national and regional governmental levels leading towards the better diffusion of new broadband (BB) technologies and services.     

Spatial data constraints: Implications for measuring broadband

The accurate determination of where broadband telecommunication services are available in the United States continues to be a significant challenge. Existing data regarding broadband provision, such as that provided by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) simply designate ZIP codes with at least one high-speed Internet subscriber. As ZIP code areas vary greatly in size and shape, the lack of geographic specificity as to exactly where broadband is available, particularly within ZIP code areas, confounds communications policymaking. Further, there are a number of additional geographic nuances concerning broadband availability that also inhibit empirical examination and policy generation, including the spatial limitations of digital subscriber line services. The purpose of this paper is to briefly review the issues concerning broadband measurement in the United States and provide an empirical analysis of several spatial data constraints that must be accounted for when interpreting and constructing public telecommunications policy.