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The measurement of internet availability and quality in the context of the discussion on digital divide

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  • Lüdering, Jochen

Abstract

My contribution is concerned with measures of Internet quality and availability used and usable in the analysis of the so called digital divide. The usage of the share of Internet users in the population - widely used in economic analysis - can easily be misleading in this debate, suggesting that the digital divide is narrowing. This appears to be an artifact of the data, as some industrialized countries are already close to a share of 100 % Internet users in the population, while the ratio of Internet users to total populations is still growing for developing countries. I argue that one should focus on the study of Internet quality provided in a demand and supply model of infrastructure. To this end, I introduce a new latency-based measure to judge the quality of Internet, based on a novel data set, and compare it to related measures. The results indicate that it may indeed be useful to measure Internet quality across countries. In particular the availability of the indicator for 247 countries and semiautonomous regions makes it an interesting tool for policy analysis. The possibility to examine the effects of different determinants on individual quantiles is particularly interesting. ICT investment appears to be strongly correlated with lower latency (better Internet quality) in the lower part of the distribution, while there appears to be little explained variation in the top of the latency distribution. In addition we find that population density is an important determinant of latency - an argument which is brought up in the theoretical discussion on ICT investment but - to my knowledge - not found empirically to date.
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  • Lüdering, Jochen, 2014. "The measurement of internet availability and quality in the context of the discussion on digital divide," Discussion Papers 65, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Center for international Development and Environmental Research (ZEU).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zeudps:65
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    1. Montenegro, Lourdes O. & Araral, Eduardo, 2020. "Can competition-enhancing regulation bridge the quality divide in Internet provision?," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1).
    2. Alexander Conrad & Alexander Hoffmann & Doris Neuberger, 2018. "Physische und digitale Erreichbarkeit von Finanzdienstleistungen der Sparkassen und Genossenschaftsbanken [Physical and digital accessibility of financial services at savings and cooperative banks]," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 38(2), pages 255-284, October.
    3. Conrad, Alexander & Hoffmann, Alexander & Neuberger, Doris, 2017. "Physische und digitale Erreichbarkeit von Finanzdienstleistungen der Sparkassen," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 149, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.
    4. Lüdering, Jochen, 2016. "Low Latency Internet and Economic Growth: A Simultaneous Approach," 27th European Regional ITS Conference, Cambridge (UK) 2016 148687, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).

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