Is the Internet Really New After All? The Determinants of Telecommunications Diffusion in Historical Perspective

Abstract

Recent anxieties over the digital divide have centered on the observation that uptake of the internet is shaped by a number of identifiable, place-based factors. Yet is the internet any more a product of material geography than previous communication technologies? Our contribution in the present article seeks to address this question by deploying quantitative techniques to examine whether the country-level adoption of past communication networks -mail, telegrams and telephone -was shaped by similar socioeconomic factors. Our results reveal striking similarities in the domestic attributes -income, education and trade openness -influencing rates of uptake across all four technologies during their major periods of diffusion.

Broadband Provision and Knowledge-Intensive Firms: A Causal Relationship?

“…The goal of this particular piece is to examine the causal nature of this relationship in the initial years of broadband availability when access to this novel infrastructure was perhaps a defining feature of the regional business climate. While this paper focuses on historical impacts, prior research highlights that past diffusion trends of older telecommunications infrastructure are indicative of diffusion trends in more recent advancements in telecommunications such as the Internet (Perkins and Neumayer, 2011). Thus, examining the initial impacts of broadband infrastructure on KIBS is likely important for understanding the impacts of next generation Internet technologies on KIBS.…”

Path dependence and the geography of infrastructure networks: the case of the European fibre-optic network

“…What is more, the major connections between Europe and North America are provides by sea cables through the Atlantic Ocean connecting European port cities to Washington DC and New York, mostly (Townsend 2001). More generally, one can expect new infrastructures to reproduce existing geographical inequalities, as the socio-economic determinants of infrastructure provision, which includes local demand, educated workforce and good governance tend to be the same across infrastructures (Perkins and Neumayer 2011).…”

Journal of Applied Communications vol. 98 (3) Full Issue

“…As the fastest diffusing technology in recent history, the Internet has significantly changed how people communicate and transfer information (Goodman et. al, 1998;Perkins & Neumayer, 2011). Its use continues to grow, in part because of the speed at which information can be transferred (Garrison, 2000).…”