The Diffusion of Internet Technologies to Rural Communities: A Portrait of Broadband Supply and Demand

Abstract

Rural communities suffer from supply- and demand-side disadvantages when dealing with Internet access. Telecommunications companies are less likely to provide such communities with needed infrastructure because of their lower population densities; these communities also tend to have lower levels of factors known to influence the access decision, such as education and income.This study looks at the broadband Internet setting in Oklahoma over a 3-year period, examining the diffusion of infrastructure and access rates. A nonlinear decomposition technique allows for measurement of how characteristics such as the availability of infrastructure contribute to observed metropolitan—micropolitan or metropolitan—noncore digital divides.The results suggest that although differences in infrastructure are consistently only minor contributors to the divide, their importance has increased as knowledge about the Internet has diffused.