Previous studies found the introduction of the today well established media radio and television to affect political participation. This paper evaluates the effect of the relatively recent introduction of a new medium, broadband internet. OLS resultssuggest a positive association between DSL...

The newest dimension of the Digital Divide is access to broadband (high-speed) Internet service. Using comprehensive U.S. data covering all forms of access technology (chiefly DSL and cable modem), I look for evidence of unequal broadband availability in areas with high concentrations of poor,...

Competition between parallel infrastructures incorporates opposing welfare effects. The gain from reduced deadweight loss might be out- weighed by the inefficient duplication of an existing infrastructure. Using data from broadband internet access for Western Europe 2000-2004, this paper...

To identify the determinants of cross-country disparities in personal computer and Internet penetration, we examine a panel of 161 countries over the 1999-2001 period. Our candidate variables include economic variables (income per capita, years of schooling, illiteracy, trade openness),...

Computer and Internet use, especially in developing countries, has expanded rapidly in recent years. Even in light of this expansion in technology adoption rates, penetration rates differ markedly between developed and developing countries and across developing countries. To identify the...

The significant increase of internet traffic is to a large extent caused by more high-data-rate applications like file-sharing etc. Although network operators constantly increase router and line capacities, overload occurs from time to time, causing delays, jitter and packet-losses at the data...

This study analyzes the geographic spread of commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs), the leading suppliers of Internet access. The geographic spread of ISPs is a key consideration in U.S. policy for universal access. We examine the Fall of 1998, a time of minimal government subsidy, when...

This paper gives a survey of the current state of competition in the German Broadband access market. Existing regulations and their impact on the deployment of high-speed Internet access are evaluated. It is argued that facilities-based competition is preferable to open-network regulations. The...

In this paper, we examine welfare implications of switching from a neutrality regime to a network management regime. While in the former a network provider or an integrated ISP should transmit data with a-bit-is-a-bit principle, in the latter it is allowed to differentiate its connection quality...

Many networks such as the Internet have been found to possess scale-free and small-world network properties reflected by so-called power law distributions. Scale-free properties evolve in large complex networks through self-organizing processes and more specifically, preferential attachment. New...