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As we become more dependent on information technologies, questions about how to build, sell, regulate, and upgrade broadband networks become increasingly crucial. Broadband networks are key enablers of information technologies as well as products of them, so their status tells us a great deal about the extent to which technology permeates the modern society.
Policy experiments over the past decade provide insight into the effects that regulatory policies have on the vibrancy of these networks and the richness of the applications they enable. Policy is not the whole story, however: nations differ with respect to geographic, historical, and cultural factors that strongly influence the motivation to invest in technology and the ability to reap its benefits.
Isolating the effects of policy from these other factors is easiest when we compare broadband diffusion, quality, utilization and cost in nations that are similar in size, economic development, education, and population distribution; hence, this study examines broadband in the Group of 7 (G7) nations.
