IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa03p76.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Urban Broadband Internet Policies in Europe: A Critical Review

Author

Listed:
  • Willem van Winden
  • Paulus Woets

Abstract

In this paper, urban broadband policies are critically reviewed. Cities and regions in Europe play an increasingly active role in the provision of broadband electronic infrastructure. Some cities are concerned that weaker groups will have little chances to get broadband access, and should be helped. Others take a more offensive stance, and promote broadband access to strengthen the local image, attract innovative companies and/or highly-skilled people. Peripheral cities take action to tackle spatial discrimination by telecom companies. There is now a scientific and political debate as to whether, and to what extent, governments should intervene in broadband markets. Several studies have pointed at the many pitfalls and negative side effects of broadband policies; others are more moderate, or even argue that governments should intervene to prevent a broadband divide. Much of this literature addresses national policies. In this article, we focus on the local level, as local policymakers seem to become more active. In this paper, we present a typology of local/regional broadband policies, based on a number of examples from European cities. We discuss the pro's and cons of various types of intervention, confront the case studies with the arguments listed in the literature, and critically evaluate the policies. Among other things, we conclude that policies are too easiliy justified with "loose" arguments of economic and social benefits, and that too often, policymakers fail to take a technology and supplier neutral approach, which may have perverse impacts in the long run.

Suggested Citation

  • Willem van Winden & Paulus Woets, 2003. "Urban Broadband Internet Policies in Europe: A Critical Review," ERSA conference papers ersa03p76, European Regional Science Association.
  • Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa03p76
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www-sre.wu.ac.at/ersa/ersaconfs/ersa03/cdrom/papers/76.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen Graham, 2002. "Bridging Urban Digital Divides? Urban Polarisation and Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs)," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 39(1), pages 33-56, January.
    2. Fraquelli, Giovanni & Vannoni, Davide, 2000. "Multidimensional performance in telecommunications, regulation and competition: analysing the European major players," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 27-46, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Geenhuizen, Marina van & Nijkamp, Peter, 2005. "Place-bound versus Footloose Firms in a Metropolitan Area," Serie Research Memoranda 0011, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    2. Anthony M Townsend, 2007. "Seoul: Birth of a Broadband Metropolis," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 34(3), pages 396-413, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jieun Lee, 2022. "Moral Hazard on Productivity Among Work-From-Home Workers Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic," Papers 2209.05684, arXiv.org.
    2. Michael Böheim & Klaus S. Friesenbichler & Susanne Sieber, 2006. "Teilstudie 19: Wettbewerb und Regulierung," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 27458, February.
    3. Walravens, Nils, 2015. "Qualitative indicators for smart city business models: The case of mobile services and applications," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 218-240.
    4. repec:asg:wpaper:1025 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Kummitha, Rama Krishna Reddy, 2018. "Entrepreneurial urbanism and technological panacea: Why Smart City planning needs to go beyond corporate visioning?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 330-339.
    6. Gerpott, Torsten J. & Massengeil, Sven W., 2002. "Strategic determinants of reseller profitability in the US wireline telecommunications market," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 111-131, March.
    7. Willem van Winden & Paulus Woets, 2004. "Urban Broadband Internet Policies in Europe: A Critical Review," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 41(10), pages 2043-2059, September.
    8. Elizabeth A. Mack & Luc Anselin & Tony H. Grubesic, 2011. "The importance of broadband provision to knowledge intensive firm location," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(1), pages 17-35, March.
    9. Sorin Cohn & Barry Gander & Jennifer Percival & Tamas Koplyay, 2016. "Managing Progress Towards Intelligent Community Status with the i-CAT Assessment Tools," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 7(1), pages 172-192, March.
    10. Calvin Jones & Dylan Henderson, 2019. "Broadband and uneven spatial development: The case of Cardiff City-Region," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 34(3), pages 228-247, May.
    11. Greig, Malcolm Stewart & Lindsay, Colin & McQuaid, Ronald W., 2002. "Delivering job search services in rural labour markets: the role of ICT," ERSA conference papers ersa02p235, European Regional Science Association.
    12. Patrice Geoffron, 2001. "Le choc de l’UMTS sur la « corporate governance » des firmes européennes," Revue d'Économie Financière, Programme National Persée, vol. 63(3), pages 231-249.
    13. Morgane De Halleux & Antonio Estache, 2018. "How “smart” are Latin American cities?," Working Papers ECARES 2018-05, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    14. Elizabeth A. Mack, 2014. "Broadband and knowledge intensive firm clusters: Essential link or auxiliary connection?," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 93(1), pages 3-29, March.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa03p76. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Gunther Maier (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ersa.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.