Adoption

The least connected people in America

Rural Indian reservations have lower rates of coverage than anywhere else in the nation. About 35 percent of Americans living in tribal lands lack broadband access, according to the most recent report by the Federal Communications Commission. In Idaho, the FCC estimates that 83 percent of the tribal population lacks broadband, making the Nez Perce tribe among the least-connected groups in the country.

Solving the Rural Broadband Equation — Fund Infrastructure, Not Carriers.

When we think about solving the rural broadband problem, nearly everyone tries to answer the question: “How do I find a carrier to serve rural areas.” But that’s not actually the problem we’re trying to solve. The problem we’re actually trying to solve is getting people access to quality broadband so they can participate in the modern digital economy and modern society generally. 

Broadband Price Diversity: Good for Adoption?

Is price diversity a bad thing for consumers or does it foster broadband take-up, especially by laggards? Academic research finds that tariff diversity is a driving factor for broadband adoption and does not impede take-up. Based on a rich original dataset with more than 10,000 residential retail broadband offers for 23 European states between 2003 and 2011, my research found that broadband demand is positively related to increased tariff diversity, especially in the presence of inter-platform competition.

Broadband to the Neighborhood: Digital Divides in Detroit

The results of a study of Internet (non)use in three neighborhoods of Detroit, Michigan. The findings of this study identify key digital divides within these neighborhoods, and illuminate a common pattern of Internet use in the city – what might be called Detroit’s Internet ecosystem – that helps explain the relative lack of Internet access across its households. The findings provide the basis for a set of recommendations for narrowing the digital divide, including ways to address such issues as the affordability of the Internet.

Innovators in Digital Inclusion: Connecting for Good

With a great amount of fanfare, Google picked Kansas City as its first Google Fiber city in July 2012. But the community’s commitment to full digital inclusion predates and runs much deeper than Google Fiber. Connecting for Good is one of Kansas City’s key digital inclusion partners. Michael Liimatta and Rick Deane knew each other through different community activities when, in 2011, they brainstormed the idea of Connecting for Good and found in it a mission they could share.

Reaching rural America with broadband internet service

[Commentary] All across the US, rural communities’ residents are being left out of modern society and the 21st century economy. I’ve traveled to Kansas, Maine, Texas and other states studying internet access and use – and I hear all the time from people with a crucial need still unmet. Rural Americans want faster, cheaper internet like their city-dwelling compatriots have, letting them work remotely and use online services, to access shopping, news, information and government data.

Sponsor: 

National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s BroadbandUSA Program, in partnership with the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development

Date: 
Tue, 03/20/2018 - 13:00 to 22:00

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s BroadbandUSA Program, in partnership with the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, will host a Broadband Summit about ‘‘Creating Partnerships to Ensure Access for All’’ on March 20, 2018. Speakers and attendees from Tennessee, federal agencies, and across the country will come together to explore ways to increase broadband deployment and improve broadband adoption to advance their overarching business, social, economic, and community goals.



Experimentation is the Watchword as Communities Seek to Close Adoption Gaps

For many low-income Americans, internet connectivity is a struggle. About half (53%) of those in households with annual incomes under $30,000 have a home broadband internet subscription plan, compared with 93% of households whose annual incomes exceed $75,000. This makes closing connectivity gaps a priority for policymakers, the non-profit sector, and many internet service providers (ISPs). What is perhaps less appreciated is the variety of models that have arisen to try to reach those without broadband at home. The population of non-home broadband users is not monolithic.

We Used Broadband Data We Shouldn’t Have — Here’s What Went Wrong

Over the summer, FiveThirtyEight published two stories on broadband internet access in the US that were based on a data set made public by academic researchers who had acquired data from Catalist, a well-known political data firm. After further reporting, we can no longer vouch for the academics’ data set. The preponderance of evidence we’ve collected has led us to conclude that it is fundamentally flawed. That’s because:

2018 Will Be the Year When the Internet Collides With Reality

The onset of a new year brings plenty of predictions, and so I will hazard one: Many of the biggest events of 2018 will be bound together by a common theme, namely the collision of the virtual internet with the real “flesh and blood” world. This integration is likely to steer our daily lives, our economy, and maybe even politics to an unprecedented degree. For instance, the coming year will see a major expansion of the “internet of things,” especially home and other smart devices subject to our commands.