One goal of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (“ARRA”) is to provide all Americans with access to affordable broadband services, particularly to those Americans living in rural markets where demand and cost conditions do not favor network deployment. At the same time, there...

This paper examines a recent study by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. The Berkman Study was specifically requested by the Federal Communications Commission to “conduct an independent expert review of existing literature and studies about broadband deployment and usage throughout...

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 directs over $7 billion to expand broadband Internet availability and adoption in the United States. One target of such funding is the elderly population, a group of Americans for which broadband adoption is relatively low. An interesting...

Countries around the world are increasingly concerned as to whether the adoption of broadband technology by their respective citizens is sufficient to support economic growth and social development. Unfortunately, such concerns are often expressed in terms of where a country ranks among its...

In 1999, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) began to grant incumbent local exchange carriers (“LECs”) pricing flexibility on special access services in some Metropolitan Statistical Areas (“MSAs”) when specific evidence of competitive alternatives is present. The propriety...

In this Perspective, I evaluate a common specification of econometric models of broadband adoption. Specifically, I consider the use of broadband plus dial-up connections, either lagged or contemporaneous, as a measure of market maturity. The variable is a model mispecification in that it...

In this PERSPECTIVE, I evaluate three normalization variables for broadband connection data for the OECD -- population, households, and fixed telephone connections. Statistical testing indicates the best normalization variable is fixed telephone connections. Broadband connections are not...

After the stunning decline in the FTC staff’s views of senior leadership in 2021—nearly the largest decline of any federal agency in a decade—satisfaction with senior leadership fell again in 2022, while views of FTC supervisory leadership once again improved. The agency appears to be in...