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Connectedness and Competition

其他書名	Determinants of Service Provision in U.S. Broadband Markets
出版	SSRN, 2013
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=jbzjzwEACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋The terms of the debate over U.S. broadband policy have shifted dramatically over the last decade. Residents in almost all areas of the United States now are able to subscribe to some form of high speed (“broadband”) internet service, though at widely varying prices and service qualities. Increasingly, the focus of policymakers has instead turned to identifying (and understanding why) some isolated pockets of the U.S. population remain without affordable high speed connectivity options, why competition among providers in providing broadband services available in various geographic markets varies so widely across the United States, the extent to which this variance in competitive conditions is linked to variance in service quality and price in distinct regional markets, and what impact, if any, public policy has had on competition. In terms of public policy, the largest program intended to improve broadband provision in the United States by far has been the so-called "eRate" schools and library subsidy system, funded by the telephone rate payer, and administered by a private industry consortium. This paper does three things. First, utilizing a uniquely rich panel data set that I assemble from a variety of sources, I develop a modeling approach that systematically analyzes the impact on broadband competition of historical national subsidies, while controlling for the economic, social and demographic factors shifting demand, and the variation in networking and service provision costs shifting supply. One of the principal objectives of this modeling effort is to determine Federal subsidies to broadband had an identifiable and statistically significant impact on the evolution of broadband competition, and availability, particularly in rural and low-income areas. Since reforms to the funding and structure of this and other Universal Service Fund programs are currently under discussion in Washington, the results of this analysis should be of considerable policy interest. Second, I assess the role that various economic, social, and demographic factors, as well as geophysical determinants of cost, played in reducing or increasing the number of broadband providers competing in residential broadband markets across the U.S. Third, I briefly discuss what this model of the determinants of the number of providers in a zip code tells us about the reasons for spatial disparities in connectedness.