Whitacre Brian, Gallardo Roberto
Department of Agricultural Economics, Oklahoma State University, USA.
Purdue Center for Regional Development, Purdue University, USA.
Telecomm Policy. 2020 Oct;44(9):102025. doi: 10.1016/j.telpol.2020.102025. Epub 2020 Aug 24.
We use a county-level panel dataset from 2012 to 2018 to assess the impacts of various state policies on total and rural broadband availability in the United States. The primary dependent variable is the percentage of residents with access to 25 Megabits per second (MBPS) download and 3 MBPS upload speeds via a fixed connection, with alternative specifications considering other aspects of availability such as technology type and competition. We control for the main determinants of Internet availability such as income, education, age, and population density. Our policy variables come from the newly released State Broadband Policy Explorer from the Pew Charitable Trusts and individual contacts from the nationwide State Broadband Leaders Network. Our primary policies of interest are those related to: (1) availability of state-level funding, (2) existence of a state-level broadband office/task force with full-time employees, and (3) restrictions on municipal/cooperative broadband provision. We find a positive and significant impact of state-level funding programs on general (and fiber) broadband availability, and a negative impact of municipal/cooperative restrictions. The findings are similar when the analysis is restricted to the rural portions of counties.
我们使用了一个2012年至2018年的县级面板数据集，以评估美国各州的各种政策对全国及农村地区宽带普及情况的影响。主要因变量是能够通过固定连接实现每秒25兆比特（Mbps）下载速度和每秒3兆比特上传速度的居民百分比，同时还采用了其他替代指标来考量宽带普及的其他方面，如技术类型和竞争情况。我们控制了互联网普及的主要决定因素，如收入、教育程度、年龄和人口密度。我们的政策变量来自皮尤慈善信托基金新发布的《州宽带政策探索者》以及全国州宽带领导者网络的个人联系人。我们主要关注的政策包括：（1）州级资金的可用性；（2）拥有全职员工的州级宽带办公室/特别工作组的存在；（3）对市政/合作宽带供应的限制。我们发现州级资金项目对一般（及光纤）宽带普及有积极且显著的影响，而市政/合作限制则有负面影响。当分析仅限于各县的农村地区时，研究结果相似。
