Consumers Willing to Upgrade, but Slow to Embrace Super-Fast Technology

Consumers are willing to pay a large amount to upgrade their Internet access speeds from slow to fast, but are more reluctant to upgrade from fast to super-fast, according to a research paper discussed at the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference last week.

Gregory Rosston of Stanford University discussed research addressing the value of consumers' high speed Internet access. Consumers are as greatly interested in reliability as they are in speed, he said. The research also found that experienced users are much more willing to pay for higher speeds while inexperienced users are willing to pay for basic access. Additionally, consumers are willing to pay for high-speed access but demand reliability over a super-fast speed.