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The digital divide has persisted in California and the USA as a whole at approximately the same level for the past decade. This is despite multiple programs being created and billions of dollars being spent to close it. This paper examines why the efforts to date have been ineffective and to offers policy alternatives that might be more successful.

Using data from three, variable constrained projects in California, this paper examines the effectiveness of information-based outreach efforts at closing the digital divide. The projects tested various outreach and enrollment methods to see which, if any, could increase broadband adoption in low-income households.

This project found that providing low-income households’ information about low-cost broadband offerings was ineffective at closing the digital divide. The findings in this paper were similar to those of two other works that examined the federal Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grants under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The findings of this paper along with the works cited that evaluated the BTOP program should be enough to change public policy. For the past ten years, efforts to close the digital divide have focused on providing information to low-income households. However, two independent surveys show broadband adoption has remained virtually flat during that period.

The digital divide brings concomitant economic and education harms and challenges that plague those unable to access information, services, educational and employment opportunities with the same ease, speed and sufficiency as their connected peers and neighbors. Those harms exacerbate the already existing education and income divides. This paper shows that without a change in strategy, those harms will persist.

This paper breaks new ground and addresses one of the weaknesses identified in existing research. To the best of author’s knowledge, this is the first paper of its type to use programs designed to generate data that can be empirically evaluated for effectiveness. Prior studies attempted to assess program effectiveness by using data generated from fully implemented government programs. However, those programs contained a vast number of unidentified variables and insufficient data collection. They were not designed to facilitate academic evaluation, and as such made a true effectiveness evaluation challenging.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a model to measure the effect of broadband availability on economic growth in developed OECD countries.

The effect of the broadband availability‐related variables on economic growth is analyzed by using cross‐country panel data for 34 OECD countries over the years 1998‐2009. The robustness of the results by the six econometric estimation approaches is compared. The preferable dynamic panel model with the system of Generalized Method of Moments is selected.

The access channels per inhabitant and total broadband per inhabitant have improved over time, but vary across the analysed OECD countries. The improved access channels per inhabitant and gross capital growth (investment) play a positive and significant role in the per‐capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth. Labour productivity growth has encouraged economic growth positively. These results are robust independently of the estimation procedure.

The authors do not find a positive and significant role of the total broadband per inhabitant on the per‐capita GDP growth. These findings and the results for control variables pertaining to trade openness and inward foreign direct investment (FDI) in the growth equation are biased to the estimation procedure.

The conceptual‐empirical value to the research of new connections made using the key elements of economic growth theory with focus on the effect of the broadband availability, main macroeconomic and economic openness variables on economic growth. This is one of the first studies that, in the growth equation, uses different broadband availability‐related variables, which in addition to gross capital growth, government consumption, and inflation in the adjusted augmented growth model are controlled for labour productivity growth, trade openness, and inward FDI.

Broadband networks, enabling high‐speed and always‐on Internet connections, are now seen by many to be critical for economic growth and development, both at the national and global level. Much energy has been invested in the deployment of broadband infrastructure around the world, and governments and industry have now begun addressing the demand side of the broadband challenge, i.e. ways in which to encourage take‐up among users. The present article zooms in on one of the leading countries in broadband, Iceland. It examines the main strategies, policies and regulations in place for promoting broadband in a country that has the world’s highest number of Internet users per capita, and posits on the main opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.

Governments around the world are providing multi‐billion dollar subsidies to roll out fiber to the home (FTTH) to enable superfast broadband (50 Mbps and above). The premise for this is a belief that superfast broadband brings substantial economic and societal benefits. This paper's purpose is to examine whether this belief is well founded.

The authors critically review the arguments most commonly made in favor of FTTH, examining their logic and underlying evidence.

The paper finds that these arguments often inappropriately use benefits of basic broadband to make the case for the upgrade to superfast broadband, or use the benefits of providing superfast to business premises to argue for providing superfast to homes. The authors find the evidence that basic broadband brings economic growth is patchy, and that frequently studies that argue for a link do not adequately distinguish between correlation and causation.

Thus the authors conclude that the conventional wisdom that FTTH will bring substantial economic and societal benefits and therefore deserves a subsidy is, at best, much overstated. The case has simply not been made that FTTH has sufficient incremental externalities over other forms of broadband. This is an important conclusion for politicians, policy makers, telecoms providers and taxpayers, and suggests that billions of dollars of public money may be being wasted.

This paper aims to compare the costs of deploying different wireless terrestrial broadband technologies in the Andes and Amazon Regions of Peru. These areas are representatives of different and challenging geographic regions throughout the globe that currently are severely underserved or unserved for vital broadband services necessary to bridge the “Digital Divide”.

The broadband technologies studied include Wi-Fi, Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX), long term evolution (LTE), TVWS and new stratospheric platforms (super-pressure balloons). This study conducts a technical analysis (design and simulation) of wireless broadband networks, and a bottom-up engineering cost analysis to estimate and compare the deployment and operating costs of the networks over a 10-year period. The analysis also identifies potential regulatory barriers to deployment associated with spectrum allocation licenses and overbooking requirements intended to improve quality of service.

Comparison of the capital and operating expenses of these options over a 10-year period finds that LTE and Wi-Fi can be the lowest cost alternatives, though significantly, stratospheric balloons have the lowest initial costs for the first few years and can factor as a low-cost broadband catalyst early in deployment. Finally, the lowest cost technology broadband roadmap for the 10-year period is presented, which includes using stratospheric balloons (carrying micro-LTE base stations) for the first years and deploying complementary terrestrial LTE networks for the rest of the 10-year period.

This study presents detailed technical and engineering cost analysis results of wireless access network deployments, including advanced wireless technologies and new unmanned aerial systems, to expand broadband services to rural areas in mountainous (Andes Region) and rainforest (Amazon Region) geographies to reduce the digital divide in emerging countries. Results aim to aid governments, regulators, internet service providers (incumbents and competitive) and content providers to assess current alternatives to expand broadband service in these rural areas.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a guideline for the European Union (EU) to support high-speed broadband development based on economic frameworks and successful countries, Korea and Sweden. In the past decade, both policymakers and academic scholars have so far emphasised broadband policy mostly on the supply side. Increasing broadband adoption, nevertheless, is important for the EU to meet its Digital Agenda. Therefore, demand-side policy is also needed to stimulate high-speed broadband adoption in the EU.

This paper applies frameworks of network externalities and the information and communications technology ecosystem to provide a better understanding of the relationship between supply- and demand-side policies. In addition, Korea and Sweden, which are two successful countries in high-speed broadband development particularly their demand-side policy, are chosen as a comparative case study.

Both supply and demand sides are important to broadband policy to achieve the EU Digital Agenda 2020. It is also important for the policymakers to consider that demand-side policy should complement the implementation of supply-side policy, not substitute it. The demand side can be a great driver, especially with the development of content and applications for high-speed broadband.

This paper fills the research gap on broadband policy on the demand side which is currently limited in comparison to the supply-side studies.

The paper aims to examine the relationship between broadband availability and firm establishment growth rates by employment size and by industry to assess the impact of broadband on small business growth in Kentucky.

The paper uses a modified growth model as the theoretical foundation for empirical analysis.

Broadband availability does increase growth in small and medium‐sized businesses. While broadband does tend to affect specific industries differently, the scope of the affects is limited to only a few industries: broadband encourages growth in small manufacturing firms, but discourages growth in financial services.

The scope of analysis is limited to the period of 2003‐2005, while some of the counties in Kentucky did not have sizable broadband deployment until 2005. Owing to the lack of data availability, the current research does not consider demand‐side factors, though several industries considered are likely to be demand‐driven rather than cost‐driven.

Utilizing unique broadband saturation data for Kentucky counties, this study presents ex‐post analysis of the effect of broadband deployment on local economies.

There is growing concern that some groups without access to high‐speed broadband networks, e.g. those residing in rural and remote areas, will be unable to benefit from online education, health and government services, etc. Such concerns have led to arguments that universal service obligations (USOs) should be upgraded to include access to broadband. This paper reviews the arguments and concludes that, at this stage of broadband development and diffusion, there is no convincing case for USO‐type mandates. Since the case for broadband USOs should be intermittently revisited, the paper proceeds, nevertheless, to explore what would be involved in a systematic review of this issue.

This article seeks to consider why broadband technologies have been so successful in reaching such a large number of new users so quickly, and what characteristics of its pricing have made this possible.

Examines the different pricing strategies available, and their impact on broadband markets and prices, as well as some of the issues involved in measuring broadband prices.

Pricing strategies have major implications for the future development of telecommunication markets, as they are dismantling the constructs on which telecommunication services have historically been priced (namely, distance, time and location). Broadband pricing strategies, especially the growing trend towards flat‐rate pricing, promise to transform the revenue streams and expansion of communication services in future.

The findings, based on analysis of a unique price database across 145 countries, will be of value to operators and regulators.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of inter-platform competition on the adoption of different broadband technologies (i.e. among xDSL, fibre-optic technologies, and hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC)), examine the direction of the effect, and identify potential technology convergence and the speed of technology innovation.

It uses Lotka-Volterra equation to determine the dynamic competition pattern for xDSL, fibre-optic technologies, and HFC.

The influence of inter-platform competition on the adoption rate may vary depending on the market conditions, the phase of the adoption period, and the types of competing technology. Even though new technology has competitive advantage, it still requires time to acquire market share. Even though fibre-optic is leading in the market, alternative technologies have also garnered significant market share in the early stage. Specifically, HFC has gained its own market position, making it a valuable alternative in the short term. Nonetheless, the market will eventually converge to fibre-optics.

The findings show that inter-platform competition does not always exert positive influence on broadband adoption as indicated in previous literature. Instead, the influence may vary from negative to neural. This information is an important knowledge addition to the literature. Overall, the study has important implications to governmental effort in managing market competitions and in planning national broadband infrastructure policies. It also provides valuable implications on how ISPs should strategize their investment in new broadband technologies.