An overview of broadband connectivity: insights from Brazil/ Panorama sobre a conectividade de banda larga: insights para o Brasil

The broadband market in Brazil is constantly evolving. We provide a legal basis and particularities of fixed and mobile broadband data, as well as a historical perspective of the beginning of the Internet in the country. We focus on the evolution of access density as the main metric of analysis, however we highlight other variables such as technology employed, payment modality and infrastructure by providers in the Brazilian telecom sector. According to Anatel (2021), responsible for regulating the market, in Brazil 56 in 100 households are connected to fixed broadband, while 101 in each 100 individuals have access to mobile broadband. We present incipient literature studying the effects of Internet expansion on the economy and social outcomes, highlighting important themes for future research

Digital gaps in school? : exploring the digital native debate

The students of today have mostly grown up surrounded by numerous digital technologies, like cell-phones, computers and the internet; therefore they are called digital natives by some scholars. These information and communication technologies are indispensable parts of their lives. The digital gaps which are caused by the (different) use of digital technologies are socially relevant primarily in school, as they influence the inequalities in education. In our article, we present the possible approaches of digital inequalities in school, the gap between teachers and students and the differences among students. We introduce the concepts and theories about the digital natives then sum up the main criticism about this thesis. Recent empirical studies and their results are presented to argue in favour of the heterogeneity of the digital native’s generation

Understanding the digital divide: A literature survey and ways forward

The term digital divide was introduced in the mid-1990s and defined as the gap separating those who have access to new forms of information technology from those who do not. The digital divide remains an important public policy debate that encompasses social, economic and political issues. This paper presents a literature review and classification scheme for digital divide research. The review covers journal articles published between 2001 and 2010 in three types of journals: (1) Information technology & information systems, (2) Economics and business & management and (3) Social science. A classification of digital divide literature and a comprehensive list of references are provided. The results show that the digital divide is a multifaceted phenomenon, due to the many dimensions of determinant factors. Recent studies have included socio-economic, institutional and physiological factors in order to gain a greater understanding of the digital divide. Among other findings, they show that technological determinism is not sufficient to explain the emergence of the digital divide. Moreover, several types of technologies were investigated, both from empirical and conceptual standpoints. The Internet is the most commonly studied technology. The divide in access and usage are discussed at the global, social and democratic levels by employing a quantitative method, either a survey or data analysis, as the main method. However, there is less discussion in developing countries and at the level of the organization (i.e. SMEs, the private sector and the public sector). The qualitative research method could be seen as a complementary method to fill the gap in the current research. The choice of policies which have been recommended to the policy maker and national regulatory agency (NRA) are also presented and discussed at the end of this paper. Several initiatives made at the country and regional levels and by international organizations have also attempted to create a combined policy. This may suggest that the combined policy is the current trend among digital divide policies. Therefore, there is a need for future research to examine these determinants through the context of global, social and democratic divides. The results would provide some insight into how diverse people in different areas adopt ICTs. --Digital divide,Literature review,Future research

Factors Affecting Household Broadband Adoption in Australia

Broadband networking technology has grown in prominence, driven by increasing interest from researchers, organisations, the popular media and the public alike. Using a data set of more than 20,000 households, this study examines residential broadband adoption and growth over time. The study uses classification tree analysis, which allows for simple interpretive descriptions of the relationship between explanatory variables and adoption propensity without the need for strong distributional assumptions, a priori variable transformation or interaction specification. The study finds that broadband adopters typically live in a metropolitan centre and were also cable TV subscribers. Online banking, research and share trading were also significant drivers for uptake

Voter mobilisation in the echo chamber: Broadband internet and the rise of populism in Europe

Can the diffusion of broadband internet help explain the recent success of populist parties in Europe? Populists cultivate an anti-elitist communication style, which, they claim, directly connects them with ordinary people. The internet therefore appears to be the perfect tool for populist leaders. This study shows that this notion holds up to rigorous empirical testing. Drawing on survey data from Italy and Germany, a positive correlation is found between use of the internet as a source of political information and voting for populist parties. By instrumenting internet use with broadband coverage at the municipality level, the study then demonstrates that this relationship is causal. The findings suggest that part of the rise of populism can be attributed to the effect of online tools and communication strategies made possible by the proliferation of broadband access

Generációk az információs társadalomban : általános iskolások, középiskolások, egyetemisták és a felnőtt lakosság IKT-használatának jellemzői Szegeden

The aim of our article is to analyse the generational differences of ICT access and utilization by presenting the first results of a recent sociological research which was carried out with four different age groups at the beginning of 2012. The paper focuses on the similarities and differences of ICT (computer, internet and mobile phone) access and use of the generations. First of all, we provide the theoretical framework of the analysis by introducing the definitions and literature of the ‘digital gap’, the ‘digital inequalities’ and the ‘digital natives’. In addition to the discussion of the mostly descriptive results of the research, we follow the concepts of digital gap and digital inequalities by first showing the differences of ICT access, then that of some other aspects of ICT use – the place, the autonomy, the intensity and the aim of use – between the generations. As far as the differences in access are concerned, the socio-economic characteristics of users and non-users are considered. The analysis confirms that ICT access and use differences correspond to the generational discrepancies. On the one hand the results show that the most typical characteristic of non-users is their high age. On the other hand we have found that even the members of the young generation – the so-called digital natives – constitute a rather heterogenic population in regard of the different dimensions of ICT use. Further analysis is needed and planned in order to reveal the causal relations behind the results found

Three Essays on Broadband Adoption

This dissertation focuses on three issues surrounding broadband internet adoption. The first study examines the recent shift to mobile-only internet connections. The percentage of mobile-only households increased from 9% in 2011 to 20% in 2015, more than doubling in only four years. As this shift continues, it leads to the question of what factors are driving the rise in mobile-only adoption. Using nationally representative data, this study uses logistic regressions and a decomposition technique to understand the trend. The decomposition reveals that a significant portion of the growth was due to an increase in the download speeds of mobile networks. An increased acceptance of mobile-only access by households aged 55 and older was also partly responsible. Understanding (and developing a response to) the trend towards mobile-only adoption will be important as organizations and governments continue to work to close the digital divide.The second study examines the effectiveness of a well-known grassroots broadband adoption oriented program, Connected Nation. While a large number of studies have examined policies and programs aimed at increasing infrastructure, little analysis to date has focused on evaluating efforts to increase adoption. This analysis focuses on the effectiveness of Connected Nation's efforts by evaluating its impact on adoption rates using a generalized difference-in-difference methodology. While the results indicate there was no significant initial impact, there is evidence of a linear effect resulting in increased adoption 2 to 4 years after the program began. This paper represents a rigorous evaluation of one of the most well-known adoption-oriented programs, and emphasizes that effective use of broadband funds should include empirical analysis of what woks.The third study examines the need for a measure of inequality for broadband adoption. Broadband adoption is primarily measured as the percentage of a population with a connection, regardless of the modality used (i.e. fixed, mobile, or both). This results in a binary measurement that distinguishes between two groups: the percentage that have the defined level of access and those that do not. However, this measure fails to capture differences that may exists in ow users connect – for example, those who use both mobile and fixed versus those use mobile only. This article proposes the use of the absolute value index (AVI) as a measure to study broadband adoption inequality. Using nationally representative data, adoption is broken into four types of connections (none, mobile, fixed, both) to compile the AVI. This measure of inequality may better represent the disparities associated with broadband use across the country, particularly as mobile internet use rises. The results indicate that the AVI can be useful in differentiating adoption patterns (i.e. mobile vs. fixed) in states with similar aggregate levels of adoption. Two nonnested hypothesis tests formally explore the explanatory power of the two measures in explaining economic relationships commonly associated with broadband adoption, and conclude that the AVI does not capture any additional information.Agricultural Economic

The internet as a catalyst for microdeviation: An integrated theory of digital music piracy

Digital music piracy has persisted as a contested form of online deviance for more than two decades, garnering social, industry, and legislative responses. This dissertation outlines an integrated approach to explain this form of deviance through a combination of the networked society, social learning, and moral disengagement theories. This approach was developed based on three hypotheses; first, that technological competency defines online experience; second, that online experiences dictate the form of social learning encountered by users; and third, users’ social learning experiences shape the way they neutralize their deviance. The hypotheses were empirically tested using a data set of 616 cases drawn from a self-administered online survey. Linear regression analyses were conducted for each test and statistically significant models as well as linkages were developed for each hypothesis; however, moderately strong findings in some cases suggest that additional theory considerations should be made. This dissertation concludes with a discussion of the study’s implications, particularly as they relate to an increasingly pluralistic internet

An evaluation of the broadband ecosystem in Western Downs region (WDR)

There is a large body of research on broadband adoption and use at the macro and national level, however, there is limited research on rural and remote areas. This research provides an in-depth understanding of the broadband ecosystem in terms of supply (broadband infrastructure), and household demand (adoption and use) of broadband Internet and its impact (building and maintaining social capital) in the Western Downs Region (WDR) of Queensland, Australia. Using the broadband ecosystem as an overarching framework, three phases and a mixed methods approach was used to conduct an in-depth explanatory case study of the WDR. The first research phase collected publicly available archival (primarily quantitative) data and field data from testing of mobile networks to determine and evaluate the status (supply) of broadband infrastructure in the WDR (RQ1). The second research phase collected primarily qualitative information using semi-structured interviews to address research questions (RQ2 and RQ3). The third phase, using a survey, collected quantitative data to validate and test broadband adoption, use and impact components of the broadband ecosystem (RQ2 and RQ3, 13 hypotheses). Thereby, the second and third research phase determined the extent of adoption and use of broadband Internet services by households and its impact in helping to build and maintain social capital in rural communities in the WDR. The research findings show that there are limitations in broadband infrastructure in remote and outer regional locations. In these locations, most households rely on mobile broadband services which were clearly demonstrated to be patchy at best in most areas of the WDR. To a lesser extent in remote and outer regional locations affordability of mobile broadband is also an issue for households given the lower socio-economic status of much of rural Australia including the WDR. Furthermore, data quotas are much more expensive for mobile broadband and satellite broadband in comparison to wired broadband. Hence, there would also appear to be a digital divide, particularly between remote and outer regional locations of the WDR and inner regional and urban locations in Australia. The researcher also demonstrated that this reflects a similar situation in many other remote and outer regional locations in Australia. The findings indicate that most households have moved beyond the adoption phase to the use phase and indicate that hedonic outcomes, self-efficacy and number of years of Internet use are significant determinants of actual use of broadband. Conversely, perceived cost, prior knowledge and experience factors were found to be significant determinants of intention to adopt and use broadband services. However, utilitarian outcomes and purchase complexity had no significant impact on intention to adopt and use. The study also found that broadband Internet use has significant impact for rural communities in the WDR by helping to build and maintain social capital (bonding and bridging). This research has made several important contributions to knowledge, theory and practice. Firstly, this research adapted the Broadband Ecosystem framework to incorporate system quality and impact components of information systems success theory, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Model of Adoption of Technology in Household (MATH) technology adoption theories and two dimensions of social capital theory (bridging and bonding theory) which complement the overarching economic theory of supply and demand in this theoretical and conceptual model. Secondly, this research addressed an important gap in information systems research -the lack of empirical research on digital infrastructure. In this study, broadband infrastructure was included in a comprehensive evaluation of the broadband ecosystem in a rural setting, the WDR. Thirdly, by focusing on two units of analysis broadband infrastructure in a rural region and household adoption, and use and impact of broadband this study addresses important research problems from a societal and government policy perspectives. Fourthly, this research examined and validated the broadband ecosystem framework using mixed methods approach in a rural context. Finally, this research has made significant practical contributions which can inform government policy by identifying that availability, reliability and affordability shortcomings of broadband infrastructure in outer regional and remote regions is impacting household adoption, use and benefits of broadband services in rural Australia. Hence, future government policy needs to ensure that access to reliable and high speed broadband services is part of its Universal Service Obligation so that the current shortcomings in broadband infrastructure in rural Australia are prioritised and addressed. This study confirms that improved access and more effective use of broadband could help to address the digital divide that currently exists between rural and urban Australia and also help to build and maintain social capital in rural communities