Thursday, January 3, 2013

Addressing the Broadband Demand Gap: Drivers and Public Policies



From the report: "The debate about the digital divide in the field of Internet use and broadband has, in large part, been generated around statistics of households that own a computer and have purchased a broadband subscription (in other words, service penetration). As a result, the political discussion and public dialogue have focused until now on the need to increase adoption based on wider coverage of telecommunications networks. The underlying premise of this statement is that if the problems that delay infrastructure deployment were addressed, the challenge of the digital divide would be overcome. Without denying that there is some causal relationship between investment and adoption, it is important to note that one of the key variables that explains the digital divide is located on the demand side, rather than on the supply side. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the divide from this perspective in industrialized countries and compare it with a similar phenomenon in Latin America." Read more