Broadband Technologies on Residential Acces

The diffusion of broadband technologies is a hot topic for developed and many developing countries. Although the provision of service has many similar aspects, the overall and specific penetration of broadband technologies varies significantly in these countries. This study aims to examine the place of users' perceptions in the broadband issue by studying the development of the selected technologies and national policies in the light of the general information technology diffusion aspects.Diffusion of Technology, Broadband Technologies, Development of National Policies and Pricing Issues

Romania -- Systematic Country Diagnostic: background note-agriculture (English)

Agriculture plays a significant socio-economic role in Romania and its transformation to a modern, vibrant, and market-oriented sector is central to fighting poverty, promoting social inclusion, and reducing the urban/rural development divide. Most of Romania\u27s poor live in rural areas and earn their living from agriculture or agriculture-related activities. In 2016, eight out of ten people who were at risk of poverty or social exclusion lived either in rural areas or in towns and suburbs that were predominately rural. Using microdata from the 2013 Household Budget Survey (HBS), this report finds that individuals living in rural areas are 16.5 percent more likely to be poor than those who live in urban areas. Also, those living in rural areas and working in agriculture are 27 percent more likely to be poor. There are large variations in poverty rates and in the risk of poverty or social exclusion across regions in Romania. The risk of poverty or social exclusion is significantly higher in the northeast, southeast, west Oltenia, south Mutenia, and the west regions compared to that in Bucharest-Ilfov, the northwest, and center regions

Working to consume: consumers as the missing link in the division of labour

This paper argues that the work of consumers is a significant and constantly developing field of work, and proposes a conceptual framework for understanding consumption work as part of the division of labour. The labour associated with consumption is not new, but has been rapidly expanding in recent years as a consequence of both socio-economic change and technical innovation. Few goods or services are delivered ?complete? to consumers in the sense of being ready for use without further activity, yet the role of consumers in completing a system of provision is rarely acknowledged in theories of either work or consumption. Recognition of the interdependence between the work undertaken prior to and after the purchase of goods and services problematises any assumption that all post-purchase activity comprises consumption and calls for a conception of the division of labour that extends from the market and world of paid employment to encompass also the usually unpaid labour of the end user. Consumption work is defined as ?all work undertaken by consumers necessary for the purchase, use, re-use and disposal of consumption goods?. Its key characteristics are delineated using examples from everyday life, and the approach towards it is distinguished from the practices and theories of consumption, domestic labour, and co-production/prosumption. The paper draws on current international comparative research in three socio-economic fields of activity (the work of food preparation, the installation of broad band and household recycling of waste) to illustrate its main arguments and explore the varieties of consumption work, their shaping by prevailing systems of provision, and their place within the division of labour

Analysis of the Effectiveness of Tariffs for Telecommunications Services with Broadband Access

The purpose of the study was to analyze the efficiency of tariffs of companies providing telecommunications services with broadband access. The analysis was carried out with respect to both the efficiency of the tariff system in general and its individual elements. The structure of costs for services providing access to the Internet and networks of digital television has been studied. The scheme of the analysis of the product and cost parts of the tariff system of telecommunication companies is proposed. The advantages and disadvantages of pricing strategies for telecommunication services are discussed

The Broadband Difference

Presents findings from a survey conducted in January and February 2002. Examines how online Americans' behavior and level of satisfaction with the Internet changes with high speed Internet connections at home

Finding high-redshift dark stars with the James Webb Space Telescope

The first stars in the history of the Universe are likely to form in the dense central regions of 10^5-10^6 Msolar cold dark matter halos at z=10-50. The annihilation of dark matter particles in these environments may lead to the formation of so-called dark stars, which are predicted to be cooler, larger, more massive and potentially more long-lived than conventional population III stars. Here, we investigate the prospects of detecting high-redshift dark stars with the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). We find that dark stars at z>6 are intrinsically too faint to be detected by JWST. However, by exploiting foreground galaxy clusters as gravitational telescopes, certain varieties of cool (Teff < 30000 K) dark stars should be within reach at redshifts up to z=10. If the lifetimes of dark stars are sufficiently long, many such objects may also congregate inside the first galaxies. We demonstrate that this could give rise to peculiar features in the integrated spectra of galaxies at high redshifts, provided that dark stars make up at least 1 percent of the total stellar mass in such objects.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures; v2: matches published versio

Service provision on a network with endogenous consumption capacity

We present a model in which the consumers' capacity to access a service provided on a network depends negatively on the price charged by the network owner per capacity unit. Several scenarios concerning the structure of the downstream service provision market are studied. First, a monopolist operates in both the network and the service provision stage. Second, we assume duopolistic competition between the network owner and the entrant. Third, we allow for endogenous differentiation of the services provided by the two competitors. Generally speaking, the duopolistic structure does not necessarily enhance consumer surplus. Furthermore, competition in the service provision market may reduce social welfare, either due to excessive differentiation or due to a low network density.telecommunications markets, regulation, endogenous consumption.

Will 5G See its Blind Side? Evolving 5G for Universal Internet Access

Internet has shown itself to be a catalyst for economic growth and social equity but its potency is thwarted by the fact that the Internet is off limits for the vast majority of human beings. Mobile phones---the fastest growing technology in the world that now reaches around 80\% of humanity---can enable universal Internet access if it can resolve coverage problems that have historically plagued previous cellular architectures (2G, 3G, and 4G). These conventional architectures have not been able to sustain universal service provisioning since these architectures depend on having enough users per cell for their economic viability and thus are not well suited to rural areas (which are by definition sparsely populated). The new generation of mobile cellular technology (5G), currently in a formative phase and expected to be finalized around 2020, is aimed at orders of magnitude performance enhancement. 5G offers a clean slate to network designers and can be molded into an architecture also amenable to universal Internet provisioning. Keeping in mind the great social benefits of democratizing Internet and connectivity, we believe that the time is ripe for emphasizing universal Internet provisioning as an important goal on the 5G research agenda. In this paper, we investigate the opportunities and challenges in utilizing 5G for global access to the Internet for all (GAIA). We have also identified the major technical issues involved in a 5G-based GAIA solution and have set up a future research agenda by defining open research problems

Why Imposing New Tolls on Third-Party Content and Applications Threatens Innovation and Will Not Improve Broadband Providers’ Investment

While some broadband providers have called Internet content and application providers free riders on their infrastructure, this is incorrect and misguided. End-users pay for their residential broadband providers for access to the Internet, and content providers pay their own ISPs for connectivity as well. However, content providers need not pay residential broadband providers’ ISPs in order to reach their customers. This feature of the Internet has been one key factor that has allowed innovation to prosper and kept barriers to entry low, as the network transport market for content and application providers functions relatively efficiently. In this paper, I consider the impact of a departure from this current system. I examine the possible impact of last-mile broadband providers’ imposing “termination fees” on third-party content providers or application providers to reach end-users. Broadband providers would engage in paid prioritization arrangements – that is, application and content providers could pay the broadband provider to have their traffic prioritized over competitors’ services. I argue that these arrangements would create inefficiency in the market and harm innovation. Because the last mile access broadband market is concentrated and consumers face switching costs, these concerns are particularly significant. Broadband providers insist that imposing these new charges will greatly improve network investment, and thus these charges are beneficial. I argue that this is not the case. Possible higher revenues from discrimination may simply be returned to shareholders and not invested. Additionally, evidence suggests networks invest more under non-discrimination requirements, and paid prioritization schemes would divert money towards managing scarcity instead of expanding capacity. Paid prioritization could even create an incentive for broadband providers to create congestion to increase the price of prioritized service.