Concern over the potential need to redefine universal service to account for Internet-related services and other combinations of communication and computing motivates this study of the geographic spread of commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs), the leading suppliers of Internet access in the United States. The paper characterizes the location of 40,000 access points, local phone numbers offered by commercial ISPs, in the Fall of 1997. Markets differ widely in their structure, from competitive to unserved. Over ninety-two percent of the U.S. population has easy access to a competitive commercial Internet access market, while approximately four and one-half percent of the U.S. population has costly access. Urban/rural coverage must be understood in the context of the different strategies of national/local providers.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Length: Date of creation: 2000 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:tuf:tuftec:0017
Contact details of provider: Postal: Medford, MA 02155, USA Phone: (617) 627-3560 Fax: (617) 627-3917 Web page: http://ase.tufts.edu/econ
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Caroline Kalogeropoulos).
Related research
Keywords:
Other versions of this item:
Find related papers by JEL classification: L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software L96 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Telecommunications L98 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Government Policy L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)