Abstract
This article examines the time path of broadband adoption for households in areas that are offered broadband service for the first time and the socioeconomic characteristics of broadband users generally. Using cross-sectional data on broadband take-up and socioeconomic characteristics of small areas in Ireland, linked to GIS data on ADSL availability over time, I find that local penetration growth rates are elevated immediately after service is offered. Local growth rates then decline towards the national average, reaching it after about 3.6 years. The article also includes estimates of the effect of various household characteristics on adoption, finding effects broadly consistent with the previous literature. Simultaneity in demand and supply are addressed using 2SLS regression.
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Notes
ADSL refers to “asynchronous digital subscriber line”, a technology and set of associated standards that permit high-speed digital communications to be carried over copper telephony circuits.
Information and communication technologies
This is essentially the demand model in Taylor (1994), Chap. 2, expressed with a spatial dimension appropriate to the data used in this study.
Intercept and error terms are shown as the same letters for simplicity but are unrelated to one another.
A small number of EDs were omitted or amalgamated to allow matching of data sources. Details are available on request from the author.
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Sharon Walsh, Alice Casey and Niamh Crilly for research assistance and Patricia Dowling and John Lysaght for their help in obtaining data. Two anonymous referees, Laura Malaguzzi Valeri, Paul Walsh and Paul Gorecki provided helpful comments on drafts, and I am grateful for comments received on earlier drafts at the 2010 European Regional Conference of the International Telecommunications Society and at an ESRI seminar. This research was funded by the ESRI Programme of Research in Communications, with contributions from Ireland’s Department for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and the Commission for Communications Regulation. The sponsors had no role in the design of the study; the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; the writing of the report; or the decision to submit the paper for publication. The usual disclaimer applies.
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Lyons, S. Timing and determinants of local residential broadband adoption: evidence from Ireland. Empir Econ 47, 1341–1363 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-013-0790-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-013-0790-6