Research

Results from a new survey of US adults reveal the extent to which people’s use of the internet has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, their views about how helpful technology has been for them and the struggles some have faced. The vast majority of adults (90%) say the internet has been at least important to them personally during the pandemic, the survey finds. The share who say it has been essential – 58% – is up slightly from 53% in April 2020.

In a two-year research project of the Rural Broadband Consortium, C Spire led a group of companies that included Nokia, Microsoft, Facebook, and others to explore the challenges of cost-effective rural broadband deployment as well as what technologies and additional business model changes might help.

The OpenVault Broadband Insights (OVBI) 2021 second-quarter report shows the percentage of subscribers with faster internet speeds is growing, and they are consuming much more data. During Q2 2021, the percentage of subscribers with 1 Gbps or faster service reached 10.5 percent compared with 4.8 percent provisioned for that speed in Q2 2020.

Every six months, the Federal Communications Commission releases updated data on the respective coverage of every internet provider in the US. That includes coverage maps as well as metrics on the types of technologies being used, the number of customers that fall into each provider's footprint, and the specific upload and download speeds available to those customers, should they choose to sign up.

This paper describes the challenge of four rural broadband providers operating fiber to the home networks to recover the middle mile network costs of streaming video entertainment and quantifies the amount of the current and future shortfall. It describes the components of the rural broadband networks, policy background for their evolution, an overview of providers, and the financial calculations of cost recovery. The preliminary results show that current broadband prices are approximately $50 per month per subscriber.

Millions of Americans struggle to pay for fast internet service, or find that it’s not available where they live, a new Consumer Reports survey shows. The nationally representative survey of 2,565 adults (PDF), conducted in June of this year, adds urgency to debates over broadband infrastructure and competition, according to consumer advocates.

The economic benefits of high-speed internet go beyond access and expansion, as examined by researchers from the University of Missouri Extension in their new study ‘The Economic Benefits of Expanding Broadband in Selected Missouri Counties.’ The study focused on three rural areas: Bollinger County has the lowest broadband adoptio

The Federal Communications Commission created new innovation zones in and nearby North Carolina State University in Raleigh (NC) and Northeastern University in Boston (MA) to allow for advanced wireless communications and network innovation research.

This report documents broadband initiatives at the county and city levels in areas statewide. It also highlights specific broadband access and adoption programs launched in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Corian Zacher, Next Century Cities’ Policy Counsel for State and Local Initiatives and lead researcher, said, “Ohio is well-known for innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship.

This analysis evaluates claims of a “broadband affordability crisis.” First, we review several international comparisons of broadband prices alongside the data on differing deployment. Any consideration of how US broadband prices stack up must take into account such deployment differences as well. Second, we provide a new analysis showing how broadband and telecom industry revenues have significantly declined as a share of the overall economy. Major findings include: