Broadband Deployment Research Articles

Unbundling the incumbent and deployment of high-speed internet: Evidence from France

In this paper, we study the impact of competition on the legacy copper network on the deployment of high-speed broadband. We first develop a theoretical model, which shows that the relation between the number of competitors and investment in a quality-improving technology can be positive if the quality of the new technology is high enough, and is negative otherwise. We test these theoretical predictions using data on broadband deployments in France in more than 36,000 local municipalities. First, using panel data over the period 2011–2014, we estimate a model of entry into local markets by alternative operators using local loop unbundling (LLU). Second, using cross-sectional data for the year 2015, we estimate how the number of LLU entrants impacts the deployment of high-speed broadband with speed of 30 Mbps or more by means of VDSL, cable and fiber technologies, controlling for the endogeneity of LLU entry. We find that a higher number of LLU competitors in a municipality implies lower incentives to deploy and expand coverage of high-speed broadband with speed of 30 Mbps or more.

What Are the Economic Effects of Municipal Broadband?

Does municipal broadband stimulate broadband adoption or employment growth? I conduct an empirical study of American towns that have built municipal networks to answer this question. Using data from the FCC’s Form 477 and the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, I track broadband deployment, adoption, and employment statistics for these towns from 2013 to 2017. A town’s decision to install a municipal network in the first place is not random, however. To deal with selection effects, I apply Coarsened Exact Matching to ordinary least squares regression to compare results from the treatment group with a weighted control group of similar towns. I also apply two-stage least squares regression with instrumental variable analysis to deal with endogeneity in the decision to build. I do not find evidence that municipal broadband yields benefits in broadband subscription rates or employment growth.

The digital inclusion role of rural libraries: social inequalities through space and place

A great deal of scholarship on broadband deployment and federal policies has positioned rural America through a deficit framework: rural parts of the country have older populations (and therefore not tech savvy), are poor (and therefore justifiably ignored by the market), too remote (therefore outside of legitimate profit-making enterprise), and losing population (and therefore significance). This research examines rural Internet connectivity through the lens of local libraries lending hotspots for Internet connectivity. Qualitative data gathered in 24 rural communities in Kansas and Maine undercut simplistic notions regarding how communication systems operate in environments ignored by normative market operations. Financial precarity and pressures from social and economic institutions compel rurally based individuals and families to assemble piecemeal Internet presence and connectivity. The public library plays a crucial role in providing Internet resources and stands out in the rural environment as a site that straddles public trust and local.

Does state aid for broadband deployment in rural areas close the digital and economic divide?

We evaluate the impact of a major European state aid programme for speed upgrades in broadband internet availability applied to rural areas in the German state of Bavaria throughout 2010 and 2011. We use a matched difference-in-differences estimation strategy that compares treated and untreated municipalities that are balanced with respect to funding criteria. We find that aided municipalities have a significantly higher broadband coverage at higher speed than non-aided municipalities. This increase in broadband coverage does not, on average, benefit the local population in terms of increase in local jobs per resident or wages. However, these effects are heterogeneous across skill groups. Furthermore, we find positive effects on the employment rate among residents. Taking these results together suggests that an increase in broadband coverage through state aid protects rural areas from depopulation (while residents work at other locations), but does not contribute to a further closing of the economic divide in the form of creating new jobs.

A Retrospective Study on the Regional Benefits and Spillover Effects of High-Speed Broadband Networks: Evidence from German Counties

There is still hardly any empirical evidence on how divergent broadband technologies, and, by extension, bandwidth levels, influence GDP growth, or on the extent of spatial externalities at a regional level. Our study aims to assess the economic benefits of high-speed broadband networks within and across neighbouring counties in Germany. Utilizing a balanced panel dataset of 401 German counties with data from 2010-2015 as well as different panel estimation techniques, we find that the availability of high-speed broadband (which enables transfer rates of 50 Mbit/sec and higher) has a small but significant positive effect on regional GDP growth in the average German county, when compared to normal broadband availability. Furthermore, we find that broadband deployment in German counties induces substantial economic benefits in terms of direct effects and regional externalities. According to our main estimation results, an increase in bandwidth coverage of 50 Mbit/sec and higher by one percentage point induces a rise in regional GDP of 0.05%. This effect is almost doubled if we also take regional externalities into account and is of particular relevance for urban counties. Furthermore, our cost-benefit analysis suggests substantial efficiency gains, as the total economic benefits of subsidy programs to encourage broadband expansion substantially exceeded their associated costs.

Identifying Lithospheric Boundaries and Their Importance for Mineral Discovery

Major lithospheric boundaries under cover have commonly been recognised through tracing of potential field anomalies, such as extensive magnetic boundaries representing margins of upper crustal packages in conjunction with density contrast. Here, we extend the investigation of domain mapping to include isotope geochemistry and deep-probing magnetotelluric data, which are able to map the deeper crustal and mantle lithosphere. We demonstrate with examples across the Kalinjala Shear Zone, South Australia, and the Eastern Gawler Craton, that major lithospheric domain boundaries exert a primary control on the location of mineral deposits near the surface. We show examples of correlating magnetotelluric models derived from the Australian Lithospheric Magnetotelluric Project (AusLAMP) and higher density broadband magnetotelluric deployments along profiles with isotope geochemistry across major lithospheric boundaries in South Australia. As one example, the Kalinjala Shear Zone in the southern Gawler Craton can be better constrained using the additional geochemical and magnetotelluric data sets and solve a long-standing debate about the northern extension of the Kalinjala Shear Zone towards the prospective Olympic Province, which hosts, major IOCG deposits. These insights have led to the development of future exploration programs which focus on in-fill broadband deployments for MT and isotope mapping to trace major lithosphere boundaries to the surface, reducing risk for mineral exploration.

Residential Broadband Deployment and Regional Employment: Evidence From China

The Information Communication Technology plays an irreplaceable role in all aspects of human life and social production as a general purpose technology. High-speed broadband network has become the focus in recent years, with the continuous development of ICT. Existing literature mainly studies its economic impact in developed countries. The practice of broadband in developing countries has been overlooked. This paper fills the gap by exploiting a broadband development program in China. The difference-in-differences estimates show that the deployment of high quality broadband promotes regional employment, especially employment in skilled service sector. The positive effect is larger in cities with better developed tertiary industry and more educated residents. We also find broadband development stimulates innovation. These findings imply that broadband promotes the upgrading of China’s industrial structure and brings new impetus to its economic transition by shifting labor force from the secondary to tertiary industry.

Ps mantle transition zone imaging beneath the Colorado Rocky Mountains: Evidence for an upwelling hydrous mantle

We analyze teleseismic P-to-S conversions for high-resolution imaging of the mantle transition zone beneath the Colorado Rocky Mountains using data from a dense PASSCAL seismic broadband deployment. A total of 6,021 P-to-S converted receiver functions are constructed using a multi-channel minimum-phase deconvolution method and migrated using the common converted point technique with the 3-D teleseismic P- and S-wave tomography models of Schmandt and Humphreys (2010). The image finds that the average depths of the 410-km discontinuity (the 410) and 660-km discontinuity (the 660) at 408±1.9 km and 649±1.6 km respectively. The peak-to-peak topography of both discontinuities is 33 km and 27 km respectively. Additionally, prominent negative polarity phases are imaged both above and below the 410. To quantify the mean properties of the low-velocity layers about 410 km, we utilize double gradient layer models parameterization to fit the mean receiver function waveform. This waveform fitting is accomplished as a grid-search using anelastic synthetic seismograms. The best-fitting model reveals that the olivine–wadsleyite phase transformation width is 21 km, which is significantly larger than anhydrous mineral physics prediction (4–10 km) (Smyth and Frost, 2002). The findings of a wide olivine–wadsleyite phase transformation and the negative polarity phases above and below the 410, suggest that the mantle, at least in the 350–450 km depth range, is significantly hydrated. Furthermore, a conspicuous negative polarity phase below the 660 is imaged in high velocity region, we speculate the low velocity layer is due to dehydration flux melting in an area of convective downwelling. Our interpretation of these results, in tandem with the tomographic image of a Farallon slab segment at 800 km beneath the region (Schmandt and Humphreys, 2010), is that hydrous and upwelling mantle contributes to the high-standing Colorado Rocky Mountains.

Building a Digital Twin: Testing the Effectiveness of Telecommunication Policies in a Virtual World

Infrastructure decision-making is challenging due to high levels of future uncertainty. Indeed, when considering broadband coverage, we are also faced with a situation where operators are reluctant to share data, there are few existing open-source evaluation models, and most available tools cannot be used by non-technical users. Transparency is sometimes low. Often disagreements arise between operators, regulators and other actors, with little independent assessment of key issues. Consequently, this paper proposes the development of a Digital Twin as a virtual test-bed for evaluating telecommunication policies. The concept of a Digital Twin has been common for several years in aerospace engineering, since first proposed by NASA in 2010. The vision defined in this paper is for a Digital Twin to be a virtual engineering-economic representation of a real-world telecommunication network, whereby simulation techniques allow exploration of potential future states under different policy conditions. A Digital Twin is developed for the British incumbent’s fixed broadband network, spanning 30 million premises and over 4.3 million geospatial telecommunication network assets. Using a network subset for Cambridgeshire, England the rollout of Fibre-To-The-Premises and Fibre-To-The-Distribution-Point upgrade options are then tested. Under different demand scenarios, market-based rollout is compared to a subsidised rollout strategy. Independently testing broadband deployment strategies in a virtual market and evaluating their effectiveness can provide greater transparency for decision-making processes. Over the long-term, a Digital Twin could help to generate new knowledge by testing experimental policy options, fostering greater innovation in how we tackle both perennial and emerging digital divide issues.

Who Gets Broadband When? A Panel Data Analysis of Demographic, Economic and Technological Factors Explaining U.S. Broadband Deployment

We study how US broadband has been deployed from 2014 to 2016 at the block and block-group level, focusing on access technology development and upgrades, expansion in rural and non-rural areas, demographics, and ISP growth. Since broadband definitions have changed over time, we provide statistical analyses using both the 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds as well as 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds. We combine data from Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 477 forms, the 2010 Census, and 2010-2014 American Community Survey (ACS) data to analyze the technology, performance, provider, and service territory characteristics affecting broadband offerings. Starting with an infrastructure-centric analysis, we analyze the most common technologies in new broadband deployments and then proceed to determine the speed distributions for each. We then focus on the rural/non-rural divide in expansion and investigate whether broadband is becoming more readily available in regions with lower economic growth factors and lower educational rates. Aside from this infrastructure-focused analysis, we used a binary logistic regression to analyze the regression coefficients and general statistics between broadband deployment and key demographic indicators of economic status, population change, and education over time. Finally, we explore how provider coverage across the nation has changed. Currently, 58% of households for 25/3 broadband and 76% for 10/1 broadband have access to two or more wireline or fixed broadband service offerings. With this in mind, we further analyzed providers' territorial expansion, change in subscribers, and competition with new offerings such as Google Fiber.

Does State Aid for Broadband Deployment in Rural Areas Close the Digital and Economic Divide?

We evaluate the impact of a major European state aid program for broadband deployment applied to rural areas in the German State of Bavaria in the years 2010 and 2011. Using difference-in-differences estimation strategies, we find that aided municipalities have - depending on broadband quality - a between 16.8 and 23.2 percent higher broadband coverage than non-aided municipalities. This increase in broadband coverage - closing the digital divide - results in an increase of on average seven employed individuals living in the respective aid-receiving municipalities while leaving the number of employed or selfemployed individuals or wages unaffected. We therefore conclude that an increase in broadband coverage through state aid prevents rural areas from depopulation, but does not contribute to a further closing of the economic divide in the form of creating new jobs.

A study on the deployment of high-speed broadband networks in NUTS3 regions within the framework of digital agenda for Europe

This paper investigates the high-speed broadband situation in the EU and its prospects. It uses a deployment model to estimate the investment required to meet the Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE) broadband targets set by the European Commission in its Europe 2020 strategy at different stages: as of 2016, after expected operators’ deployment, after public subsidies and leveraged investment, and as expected in 2020. The model uses data at the NUTS3 level, which is the most granular level that has data available on the status of broadband deployment, to arrive at a coherent and comparable framework. From the different perspectives on the investment to meet DAE targets, the paper concludes on the need for an appropriate combination of incumbent and alternative operators investments, public subsidies and leveraged investments, and new investments, both public and private and non-existing as of 2016, examining their feasibility and the impact of different regulatory, technical, and policy strategies.

On the Viability of Using Autonomous Three‐Component Nodal Geophones to Calculate TeleseismicPsReceiver Functions with an Application to Old Faithful, Yellowstone

ABSTRACT Recent advances in seismic data‐acquisition technology paired with an increasing interest from the academic passive source seismological community have opened up new scientific targets and imaging possibilities, often referred to as Large‐N experiments (large number of instruments). The success of these and other deployments has motivated individual researchers, as well as the larger seismological community, to invest in the next generation of nodal geophones. Although the new instruments have battery life and bandwidth limitations compared to broadband instruments, the relatively low deployment and procurement cost of these new nodal geophones provides an additional novel tool for researchers. Here, we explore the viability of using autonomous three‐component nodal geophones to calculate teleseismic Ps receiver functions by comparison of co‐located broadband stations and highlight some potential advantages with a dense nodal array deployed around the Upper Geyser basin in Yellowstone National Park. Two key findings from this example include (1) very dense nodal arrays can be used to image small‐scale features in the shallow crust that typical broadband station spacing would alias, and (2) nodal arrays with a larger footprint could be used to image deeper features with greater or equal detail as typical broadband deployments but at a reduced deployment cost.

A Techno-Economic Approach for Broadband Deployment in Underserved Areas

A large body of economic research has shown the strong correlation between broadband connectivity and economic productivity. These findings motivate government agencies such as the FCC in the US to provide incentives to services providers to deploy broadband infrastructure in unserved or underserved areas. In this paper, we describe a framework for identifying target areas for network infrastructure deployment. Our approach considers (i) infrastructure availability, (ii) user demographics, and (iii) deployment costs. We use multi-objective optimization to identify geographic areas that have the highest concentrations of un/underserved users and that can be upgraded at the lowest cost. To demonstrate the efficacy of our framework, we consider physical infrastructure and demographic data from the US and two different deployment cost models. Our results identify a list of counties that would be attractive targets for broadband deployment from both cost and impact perspectives. We conclude with discussion on the implications and broader applications of our framework.

The Tragedy of Australia's National Broadband Network

This article reviews recent developments in global broadband deployments and highlights the growing global dominance of fibre to the premises (FTTP). Australia’s increasing use of fibre to the node (FTTN) has locked the country out of world-class broadband for years to come. If Australia is ever to obtain first-class broadband services, it will be necessary to replace FTTN with higher speed technologies.

The Tragedy of Australia's National Broadband Network

This article reviews recent developments in global broadband deployments and highlights the growing global dominance of fibre to the premises (FTTP). Australia’s increasing use of fibre to the node (FTTN) has locked the country out of world-class broadband for years to come. If Australia is ever to obtain first-class broadband services, it will be necessary to replace FTTN with higher speed technologies.

International telecommunications demand

The means by which consumers communicate internationally have changed dramatically in recent years. The emergence of wireless international calling as well as VoIP have created substantial new communications pathways and vehicles for consumers. This paper extends the focus of traditional international demand studies to incorporate these new pathways for international communications. It draws upon a modern database that incorporates both mobile and VoIP calling made over the 2009–2012 period between 25 countries around the world. Among other things, it finds that modern consumers of international calling are most sensitive to mobile and VoIP telephone prices and that the deployment of broadband has replaced the deployment of fixed telephone lines as a key enabling infrastructure for international calling. The results suggest that future studies of international communications should certainly incorporate these features.

北海道東川町におけるブロードバンド整備事業の展開

2000年代に入り，インターネットの高速通信を可能とした新たな通信基盤として，ブロードバンドが急速に普及している。ブロードバンドには様々な技術があるが，日本で広く普及しているADSLは，技術的制約から広大な平野部のような地域に対するブロードバンドの提供には適さない。本研究では，こうした地域におけるブロードバンドの整備事例として，北海道東川町を対象に，住民へのアンケート調査を通じて光回線の需要を明らかにした。

Broadband Internet and New Firm Location Decisions in Rural Areas

Improving rural broadband access has been touted as a rural development strategy, but there is limited evidence that broadband service affects rural economic growth. We measure the effect of broadband deployment on location decisions of new rural firms. Location‐specific fixed effects are controlled by a counterfactual baseline that measures how local broadband service in the early 2000s affected local new firm entry in the early 1990s before broadband was available anywhere. The change in location choice probability of new firms from the counterfactual baseline to the actual response ten years later is the difference‐in‐differences estimate of the effect of broadband deployment on locations of new firms. We find that broadband availability has a positive and significant effect on location decisions of new firms in rural areas, which is confirmed by a robustness test using ZIP Code dummy variables. The broadband effect is largest in more populated rural areas and those adjacent to a metropolitan area, suggesting that this effect increases with agglomeration economies.

Improving rural broadband deployment with synergistic effects between multiple fixed infrastructures

The utilization of deployment synergies across infrastructure networks of different industries has been identified as a key to improve the broadband business case. Thus, an increasing number of broadband plans require owners of physical infrastructures such as the electricity, pipeline, highway and railroad networks to host broadband infrastructure. However, cross-industry cooperation brings about new complexity to optimal utilization of deployment synergies.This paper explores cost savings that can be achieved if national non-telecommunication infrastructures are considered as source for broadband networks in rural areas. Moreover, it assesses economic, political and regulatory measures required for improving synergy utilization. The presented approach is based on a techno-economic broadband deployment model, which is applied to all rural communities in Germany. Results indicate that synergy optimized network topologies can generally decrease rural broadband deployment cost. However, it is required that local authorities recognize the definition of broadband tender areas as a chance for the aggregation of demand. Moreover, national regulators need to ensure that metro-aggregation, backbone and co-location costs, which are associated with non-telecommunication infrastructures, do not exceed the costs of the incumbent by more than 50%.