Beyond Broadband Access: Developing Data-Based Information Policy Strategies

Beyond Broadband Access

DONALD MCGANNON COMMUNICATION RESEARCH CENTER’S

EVERETT C. PARKER BOOK SERIES

SERIES EDITOR: PHILIP M. NAPOLI

This series seeks to publish research that can inform the work of policy makers, policy advocates, scholars, and students as they grapple with a rapidly changing communications environment and the variety of policy issues arising within it. The series employs a broadly defined notion of communications policy, in that it considers not only scholarship addressing specific policy issues and processes but also more broadly focused communications scholarship that has direct implications for policy making.

EDITORIAL BOARD

Patricia Aufdherheide, American University

Ellen Goodman, Rutgers University School of Law, Camden

Allen Hammond, Santa Clara University School of Law

Robert B. Horwitz, University of California at San Diego

Robert W. McChesney, University of Illinois

Jorge Schement, Rutgers University, New Brunswick

Edited by

Richard D. Taylor and Amit M. Schejter

Beyond Broadband Access

DEVELOPING DATA-BASED

INFORMATION POLICY STRATEGIES

FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS • NEW YORK • 2013

Copyright © 2013 Fordham University Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Fordham University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Fordham University Press also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Beyond broadband access : developing data-based information policy strategies / edited by Richard D. Taylor and Amit M. Schejter.

pages cm. — (Donald McGannon communication research Center’s Everett C. Parker book series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8232-5183-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8232-5184-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Telecommunication policy. 2. Broadband communication systems. I. Taylor, Richard Denny. II. Schejter, Amit M.

HE7645.B4896 2013

384.3—dc23

2013012099

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Numbers That Matter

Richard D. Taylor and Amit M. Schejter

PART I: THEORY

1.   Beyond Broadband Access: What Do We Need to Measure and How Do We Measure It?

Catherine Middleton

2.   Understanding Digital Gaps: A Quartet of Empirical Methodologies

Bin Zhang and Richard D. Taylor

3.   Broadband Microfoundations: The Need for Traffic Data

Steven Bauer, David Clark, and William Lehr

4.   Adoption Factors of Ubiquitous Broadband

Sangwon Lee and Justin S. Brown

5.   Data and Modeling Challenges in International Comparisons

Johannes M. Bauer and Sungjoong Kim

6.   Data, Policy, and Democracy

Jorge Reina Schement

7.   Rulers of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens: Does Democracy Count?

Amit M. Schejter

PART II: THE USE AND ABUSE OF DATA IN INFORMATION POLICY MAKING

8.   PhD Heal Thyself: In Search of Evidence-based Research for Evidence-based Policy

Eli Noam

9.   Case Studies in Results-Driven Decision Making at the FCC

Rob Frieden

10.   The Determinants of Disconnectedness: Understanding US Broadband Unavailability

Kenneth Flamm

11.   European Broadband Spending: Implications of Input-Output Analysis and Opportunity Costs

Ibrahim Kholilul Rohman and Erik Bohlin

12.   Using Data for Policy Development: Designing a Universal Service Fund for Tanzania

Heather E. Hudson

Notes

Bibliography

List of Contributors

Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is based on selected edited papers that were first delivered at a workshop, Beyond Broadband Access: Data-Based Information Policy for a New Administration, held at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., on September 22–24, 2009. We gratefully acknowledge the support and collaboration of many people in making both the workshop and this book possible. We would like to express our deep appreciation to Sascha Meinrath, director of the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative, and his staff at the Foundation for providing the facilities and personnel support for the program.

We also wish to acknowledge the other co-organizers of the workshop: Professor Johannes Bauer, codirector of the Quello Center for Telecommunication Management and Law at Michigan State University; Professor Jorge Reina Schement, dean of the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University; and Professor Bin Zhang of the School of Economics and Management at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. We thank them and their institutions and organizations for helping make the workshop the success that it was.

The workshop would not have been possible without the generous support of its diverse coalition of sponsors: AT&T, Google, the Media Democracy Fund, the Social Science Research Council, T-Mobile, and Verizon. We would like to acknowledge and thank them for providing the material support and resources that made both the program and the wide-range of attendees possible. It is the thoughtful generosity of both foundations and corporations like theirs that make public scholarship possible, and we hope their example will be an encouragement to others.

We owe a great debt to Dr. Benjamin Cramer at the Institute for Information Policy at Pennsylvania State University for his invaluable assistance with matters of style and editing. Special appreciation and gratitude goes to the people of Fordham University Press for their support and guidance throughout this project: our colleague Professor Phil Napoli, director of the Donald McGannon Communication Research Center at Fordham University and the editor of the Everett C. Parker book series; Fredric Nachbaur, director of the Press; Eric Newman, managing editor; and Will Cerbone.

Last but not least, we have benefitted from the stimulating, and sometimes challenging, thinking of our colleagues at Penn State University, and from the support of the College of Communications, Dean Doug Anderson, Associate Dean Emeritus John Nichols, and Associate Dean Marie Hardin. In particular, we appreciate the cooperation of the college’s financial officers—Jane Agnelly, Annette Rice, and Dorie Glunt—in keeping our budgets organized and in-line.

INTRODUCTION: NUMBERS THAT MATTER

RICHARD D. TAYLOR and AMIT M. SCHEJTER

In recent years the information policy discourse has been inundated by numbers and metrics, which purportedly describe the information society and reflect national levels of such measures as e-readiness and the digital divide. In policy circles, just the ranking among some of these lists has been seen as an impetus for policy development. For example, President Barack Obama, shortly after being elected, stated that it is unacceptable that the United States ranks fifteenth in the world in broadband adoption.¹ Most approaches involving quantitative indicators produce results, which are primarily descriptive and comparative (e.g., which nation has more Internet access, are operators providing services at the level they promise). Too often such studies have been looking for the penny under the street light—choosing indicators because data are available—while looking backward to a time when information and communication technologies (ICTs) had limited capabilities. Previously, the mere calculation of penetration levels may have provided sufficient information to direct policies that were solely focused on increasing availability. But in today’s multimodal multimedia ICT environment, what is their value? Looking ahead, are they the numbers that matter? Have past models been loaded for or against certain outcomes? Can the underlying methods be transformed into truly useful policy tools? If so, with what data? For the future, can we find the numbers that matter?

What is missing are analyses that are not only descriptive and comparative but also explanatory and predictive, making it possible to understand why things have happened and why they are happening, and to make predictions about what will happen. While not always admitting it, current approaches involve a high degree of subjectivity; it is important to adopt statistical methods that reduce this aspect. However, method must first be guided by theory, and in this field, theory is remarkably lacking. Important policy decisions are being made worldwide about information services to promote innovation, knowledge development, social equity, and democratic values. And while there is broad international consensus that these decisions are improved if they are informed by empirical data, there is no accepted doctrine as to what data really matters.

The first step in developing a strategy for building a comprehensive, data-based approach to understanding policy consequences, and for improving policy outcomes through the utilization of meaningful empirical analyses, statistical methods, and the development of new conceptual frameworks, requires enhanced theoretical development. For a long time we have felt that there was a need and a demand for a compilation of good theories that will generate an informed debate about how to formulate questions that lead to testable hypotheses for which the appropriate methods must be deployed. In a world in which information-based power is becoming the dominant paradigm, such empirically based, data-informed policy analysis is a critical tool, and recent activity in policy circles in the United States, the European Union, and China (among others) demonstrates that policy makers are developing and utilizing such tools.

This book is an attempt to fill that void. In response to a competitive international call for papers, nearly thirty scholars from around the world—representing a wide range of disciplines, among them economics, law, policy studies, computer science, information science, and communications studies—convened in Washington, DC, in September 2009. They presented studies and papers that focused on two aspects of the debate on broadband policy: different theoretical approaches to data-based communications policy making and case studies demonstrating both the use and abuse of data in the development of information policy. From these we present here twelve contributions that provide a well-rounded and international perspective of both evolving theory and theory implementation.

Following the direction of the studies presented at the workshop, the book is divided into two parts. Part I deals with theoretical aspects of measuring information, and with issues that should be considered when designing broadband-focused information policy. Part II demonstrates how data has been both used and abused for argumentation purposes with regards to choices among policy paths and for policy building.

In Chapter 1, Catherine Middleton argues that while existing information society measures like the International Telecommunication Union’s ICT Development Index and the World Economic Forum’s Networked Readiness Index provide a useful starting point for comparing national ICT indicators, they fail to offer sufficiently detailed metrics upon which to formulate policy related to the development and use of broadband networks. She offers more nuanced approaches to understanding whether, and how, citizens actually benefit from access to broadband technologies, and offers suggestions for the development of new, policy-relevant measures of ICT usage.

In Chapter 2, Bin Zhang and Richard Taylor present a series of exercises in using statistical methods to analyze the digital divide, using China as a model, because China has pursued the empirical study of informatization for some time, and has collected extensive relevant data. They demonstrate the use of four approaches—Static and Dynamic Analysis/Analytic Hierarchy Process, Hierarchical Clustering Analysis, Time-Distance Analysis, and Data Envelopment Analysis—showing how they open the door to more fundamental theoretical questions and suggest future study avenues.

Steven Bauer, David Clark, and William Lehr claim in Chapter 3 that data focused on availability and on adoption metrics is becoming less informative as broadband penetration rises, and that since the next set of questions will center on the health of the broadband access market, network traffic data will be central to understanding and answering many of these questions. To answer these questions it will be helpful to learn more about the distribution of usage across the user population, the characteristics of users that participate during peak periods of network congestion, and the variance in usage and how it differs by type of user. In their contribution in Chapter 4, Sangwon Lee and Justin Brown demonstrate how the results of regression analysis suggest that network competition between fixed and mobile broadband, platform competition in fixed broadband markets, and the multiple standardization policy in mobile markets, are all significant factors of ubiquitous broadband deployment. While the theoretical reasoning for quantification of connectivity raises methodological challenges, the social justification for government policy promoting access to information and communication technologies involves moral and ethical considerations.

The transition from theory to practice is more often than not country-and region-specific, so the value of economic, statistical, or social theories needs to be seen in a local perspective. In Chapter 5, Johannes Bauer and Sungjoong Kim address one particularly challenging problem affecting cross-national comparisons of advanced communication services: the increasing importance of service and price differentiation, particularly the reliance on multipart self-selection tariffs. They propose a new method, the Low Expenditure Frontier for putting such comparisons on a more robust basis, and they illustrate it using the case of mobile voice services.

The last two contributions in part I discuss the connection between citizenship, democracy and information policy. In Chapter 6, Jorge Reina Schement argues that the roots of information policy can be found in the implied social contract between governments and the governed and identifies a new social contract relevant for the information age. Amit Schejter, in Chapter 7, decries the hypercommercialization of the information network and its control by private interests using the marketplace metaphor. He argues that government policy should adopt a justice-based metaphor instead, and focus on quantifying the amount of democratic opportunity created, after reaching consensus on the definition of democratic participation.

Opening the discussion on the use and abuse of data for information policy development, Eli Noam notes the reluctance in policy debates to engage in unbiased data analysis, with parties seeking only results-oriented analysis. He uses the debate on media concentration as an example. He questions whether there is an interest in Congress and the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in serious data analysis. He identifies a specific structural impediment in the rule-making process, and recommends a requirement for an academic impact statement in rulemakings, which would be an independent literature review of relevant peer-reviewed literature. In Chapter 9, Rob Frieden identifies several instances in which the FCC could have used empirical research and peer review to achieve an accurate measure of whether a telecommunications market operates competitively. However, deregulatory zeal and wishful thinking motivated the FCC to refrain from engaging in rational decision-making. In Chapter 10, Kenneth Flamm reviews recent US broadband data, discusses why the broadband connectedness portrayed in the FCC postal code–level data is in some respects problematic, and outlines an approach that can be used to systematically model the determinants of disconnectedness and assesses what economic and demographic factors can be identified as important, and statistically significant, in reducing or increasing disconnectedness.

The final two Chapters discuss cases outside the Americas. In Chapter 11, Ibrahim Kholilul Rohman and Erik Bohlin address a methodology to evaluate the opportunity cost of using government funds for broadband in the context of a future European proposal to publicly fund broadband infrastructures; and in Chapter 12, Heather Hudson examines how data, primarily from existing sources, is being used to plan implementation of a universal service fund in Tanzania. That nation is presented as an example of relying primarily on existing data from multiple sources that could be used in other developing regions where time and/or resources to conduct dedicated field studies may be limited.

. . .

The wide range of issues discussed in part I—from traffic data to democracy measures and from statistical analyses to considerations in comparative studies—may seem to some either overwhelming or even counter-productive: If there is so much we need to know and in so many different ways, perhaps the effort of making all that information available may not be worth it. Another criticism of this intellectual effort may be that the complexity of the policy-making process which would arise from adopting some of these theoretical approaches will lead to its professionalization, and result in the exclusion of new, innovative voices that are not necessarily capable of participating in this type of discourse. Indeed, these and other critiques are a welcome aspect of the debate we hope this book creates, because a debate is what is badly needed. Only a rigorous and open debate can lead to an accepted, meaningful formula for planning policy as objectively as possible to serve the needs of society and its members. The alternative is that we encounter more of what is described in part II: data will be misused and abused to advance political or personal interests, or will be a result of incompetence and ignorance. Of the two alternatives, to us the choice is clear.

There are many additional aspects of meaningful broadband planning that did not make their way into the contributions in this book. One that comes to mind is the use of mapping and advanced mapping techniques. Another is a discussion of the many documents that are already out there as a result of foundation or think-tank initiatives and that can serve the conversation by bringing well-informed approaches to the table. Yet another may be tapping into the experiences of those who were at the helm of designing communication and information policies as society was transitioning into the information age, and building on their experiences. Indeed, much more can be said.

One thing this exercise demonstrates is clear—the haphazard, off-the-cuff, intuitive, and interest-serving approaches of the past should make way to theory and data-driven approaches in the future. We offer a number of well thought-out proposals to pursue this quest. As early as 1976, in his ground-breaking work The Coming of Post-Industrial Society,² Daniel Bell noted that among the distinguishing characteristics of what he perceived to be a revolutionary change in the structure of society were the centrality of theoretical knowledge, the capability of planning, and the rise of intellectual technology. Indeed, it would be an irony of our times if at the culmination of these dramatic changes, the planning for full utilization of their benefits for the sake of all members of society were to be left in the hands of chance.

PART I

Theory

CHAPTER 1

Beyond Broadband Access

What Do We Need to Measure and How Do We Measure It?

CATHERINE MIDDLETON

Around the world, claims that broadband infrastructure is central to the development of the knowledge economy are becoming indisputable. Many governments are taking steps to ensure their regulatory environments encourage private sector investment in broadband,¹ consistent with Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recommendations to rely on competition to the maximum extent possible as a means of building broadband infrastructure.² In instances where the private sector cannot establish a business case for broadband deployment, governments are committing public funds to extend the reach of broadband networks, justified by the widely held belief that broadband access is essential infrastructure for an information society.

Investment in broadband infrastructure is premised on the dual assumptions that broadband networks enable the information society and the knowledge economy, and, by providing citizens with access to broadband, citizens will participate in, and reap the benefits of a knowledge-based economy and society.³ However, Preston, and Cawley observe that broadband development is often driven by supply-side, technology-focused policies that do not explicitly consider the needs of users.⁴ Deployment of broadband infrastructure is expected to encourage the creation and uptake of socially useful applications, but this is not guaranteed. Indeed, at present there is a gap between the discourses linking broadband deployment with the development of a knowledge-based society and the ability to deliver the desired outcomes. This chapter explores this gap.

A central motivation for investing in broadband is that providing citizens with access to broadband connectivity will allow them to engage in the information society. But there are three problematic parts of this statement: 1) access to broadband does not ensure that broadband is used, or that it is useful for the user; 2) all broadband networks are not the same, meaning that the potential benefits of broadband access may not be equal for all broadband users; and 3) there is uncertainty as to exactly how to recognize the broadband-enabled benefits of engagement in the information society.

Although there is a great deal of research activity regarding broadband and the information society, this chapter argues that there is a need for better research questions, improved analytical approaches and more sophisticated and wider-ranging data collection in order to fully assess the extent to which broadband networks actually do enable citizens to become participants in the information society. The chapter begins with a consideration of the nature of broadband networks, followed by a discussion of how broadband can enable engagement in the information society. The availability and analysis of data on broadband use is then explored, and suggestions for improved data analysis approaches are offered. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the challenges of developing more advanced measures.

ALL BROADBAND CONNECTIONS ARE NOT THE SAME

Many claims are made about the benefits of broadband. As more evidence is compiled demonstrating the positive returns on investment in broadband, it is important to consider exactly what is encompassed in this term so as to better understand the type of investment (and resultant infrastructure) that enables positive outcomes.

What is available to citizens? National and pan-national (e.g., European Union) statistical agencies do not apply a common definition of broadband, nor do they collect data in a consistent format. Some differences in approach are explained below, highlighting the need to understand speeds and network characteristics.

Statistics Canada’s Canadian Internet Use Survey (CIUS) collects data on the type of household Internet connection. Those reporting cable or satellite connections are recorded as having high-speed access. Respondents with telephone connections are asked if their connection is a high-speed connection. No definition of high speed is offered, but it is assumed that respondents in this category would describe their Internet as high speed if they were not using a dial-up connection. In total, the 2009 CIUS data indicate that 92 percent of Canadians with Internet access at home (70 percent of the total population) have a high-speed connection.⁵

The term broadband is not applied to these data by Statistics Canada, but data reported by the CRTC (the Canadian telecommunications regulator) differentiates between high-speed and broadband networks, using broadband to describe connections with download speeds greater than 1.5 Mbps.⁶ The CRTC reports that 93 percent of Canadian home Internet users had high-speed Internet connections in 2008, but only 70 percent of these were broadband connections. Taking into account the nonusers, this means that just over 50 percent of Canadian households had Internet connections that provided access at speeds greater than 1.5 Mbps, a number that is quite different than the 70 percent of households with high-speed connections reported by Statistics Canada.

In Australia, as of December 2009, 89 percent of Internet subscriptions were for broadband services, defined as providing downloads at speeds greater than 256 Kbps.⁷ If applying the same minimum as the Canadian data (i.e., > 1.5 Mbps), only 60 percent of subscriptions would be categorized as broadband. But while the Australian Bureau of Statistics considers speeds above 256 Kbps as broadband, the Australian government has embarked on a program to offer speeds of up to 100 Mbps to homes, orders of magnitude faster than speeds currently experienced by many Australians.⁸

2010 Eurostat data⁹ show that 64 percent of households have a broadband connection, defined as connectable to an exchange that has been converted to support xDSL-technology, to a cable network upgraded for Internet traffic, or to other broadband technologies.¹⁰ OECD data show that European countries are now the international broadband leaders,¹¹ thus it is interesting to note that across fifteen European countries not quite two-thirds of households have broadband connectivity. After years of promoting the benefits of the information society, it seems that many citizens are yet to be convinced that they require broadband access.

More than 50 percent of Japanese broadband subscribers are connected by fiber networks that can provide download speeds of 100 Mbps or more, and several other OECD countries have extensive fiber uptake.¹² In countries with competition among broadband technologies, cable companies are upgrading their networks to offer download speeds of up to 120 Mbps, and telephone companies are increasing the availability of faster DSL connections (with download speeds in the range of 20–50 Mbps).¹³

Mobile broadband services are also becoming more common, providing users with coverage anywhere served by mobile broadband networks. Although speeds vary enormously, and connectivity is not always reliable, mobile broadband is used by many as a substitute for fixed line service.

Examples could be provided from many other countries, but the data above are sufficient to demonstrate that there are many definitions of broadband, and that there are vast differences in the speeds of broadband connections used by citizens around the world. Variations in connection speeds result in differing experiences of the Internet. Additionally, actual connection speeds often do not match the advertised speeds, with connections frequently slower than advertised. The discrepancies are noted in reports by the Federal Communications Commission in the United States,¹⁴ Epitiro in Australia,¹⁵ and Ofcom in the United Kingdom,¹⁶ and indicate that the problem is not confined to a specific country.

There are three other pertinent issues regarding the speed of Internet connections that impact the way that citizens experience broadband networks. The first is that in a few countries, Internet service providers (ISPs) impose strict limits on the volume of data that can be downloaded in a fixed period (often a month).¹⁷ These download caps counteract the value of having a high-speed connection, because once the monthly cap has been reached, financial or technical penalties (e.g., reduced download speeds) are imposed on the subscriber. As such, it is important to understand the conditions of access that govern a broadband connection, as speed is not the only factor that can constrain usage.

The second concern is that in some countries, independent of download caps, ISPs are known to throttle or shape (i.e., degrade) certain types of Internet traffic. This is typically done in the guise of network management, but it is argued these practices violate the principles of network neutrality and detract from a citizen’s ability to freely access online content.¹⁸ Given the differential traffic shaping practices among ISPs, it is useful to understand how these practices can impinge upon citizens’ Internet activities, as they may impact their ability to fully engage in the information society.

Third, the interactive nature of the Internet means that not only do people want to download content and services, they also want to upload their own content and create their own services.¹⁹ Residential Internet connections have traditionally been asymmetrical and it is a technical challenge to increase upload speeds on copper and cable networks.²⁰ But as citizens become more engaged with the information society they want fast download speeds to be matched with fast upload speeds. Some providers do offer symmetrical or near symmetrical speeds, but faster upload speeds are usually considered a premium service and cost more.

Without knowing the connection speed, whether there is a download cap, whether the connection is subject to traffic management practices, and whether the connection supports symmetrical or near-symmetrical uploads it is difficult to make assumptions as to the capacity of an individual’s broadband network.

Why do speed and network quality matter? Most people would instinctively choose a faster speed connection over a slower one, but it is useful to consider the specific benefits that can arise with the adoption and use of faster, higher quality, unrestricted networks. There are numerous reports that describe the applications that are enabled by higher speed connections,²¹ as well as documents that explore the added functionality offered by faster broadband networks and consider demand for such networks.²² But simply building a higher speed network and making it available to users without imposing download caps or traffic shaping does not ensure that they will be able to benefit from access to it. Thus, the observations made here about the potential uses of higher speed networks are premised on the assumption that the users will have the necessary skills and interest to take up these applications in meaningful ways.

One of the most frequently cited benefits of higher capacity networks is the ability to support video applications. These networks will support multiple high-definition television (HDTV) streams into homes, but with more symmetrical network architecture, networks can also be used to support interactive high-resolution video conferencing. Advanced video services can support healthcare, entertainment (e.g., interactive gaming) and educational applications, as well as enabling energy management functionality, and remote monitoring of any location.

Speed and quality matter because they have a large influence over what can be done on a particular broadband network. If broadband networks are to deliver benefits to users by enabling certain functionality, then it is essential to understand whether the user’s broadband network can actually deliver such functionality. By assessing users’ needs and recognizing the limitations of lower speed, restricted, asymmetrical broadband networks, it is possible to create an upgrade path to provide improved connectivity and enhanced access to the information society.

Assessing broadband connectivity. This section has outlined some of the problems in assuming that the simple availability of a broadband network will enable all of a citizen’s desired online activities. Given the many variations in broadband speeds, access restrictions and network quality, there is a strong case to be made for ensuring that the attributes of broadband networks are well understood by those planning to deploy services over them, and by those responsible for providing broadband connectivity as a means of enabling the information society.

Table 1-1 highlights network characteristics that should be considered in order to assess the extent to which a broadband network can meet its users’ needs.²³ Ideally, this information could be used to develop a household broadband profile.²⁴ This profile would allow for immediate determination of whether a household has the capacity to engage in specific activities, and identification of gaps to be remedied. The answers to some questions are clear cut (e.g., advertised speed), others are more subjective (e.g., definitions of affordability, which is relevant in understanding whether a citizen can maintain this connection over time) or subject to variation over time (e.g., actual speeds, whether a connection can support particular applications).

Developing household broadband profiles is only a first step in the exploration of how citizens can benefit from broadband infrastructure. The profile provides information on the current and future capacity of a household’s broadband connectivity, but capacity is a measure of potential benefit, not of realized benefit. As Gillett et al. observed, in order to benefit from broadband infrastructure, broadband ha[s] to be used, not just available.²⁵

The issue of use is central to the broadband enables the information society logic. Although it seems obvious that broadband networks must be used to create value, this point is not