Determinants of the diffusion of U.S. digital telecommunications

Allan Shampine ()
Additional contact information
Allan Shampine: Lexecon Inc., 332 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60604-4306, USA

Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 2001, vol. 11, issue 2, 249-261

Abstract: This paper examines the diffusion of digital switches from 1983 to 1996. It expands upon the existing literature by extending the data available back an additional six years and by adding independent companies such as Frontier, SNET and Cincinnati Bell. The data (graciously provided by DataQuest) indicate that the early period of adoption, which previous papers have been unable to examine due to lack of data, is significantly different than the later period of adoption. In the early period the installed base and the ability of larger networks to internalize more of the total benefits are the primary determinants of adoption, while the distribution of population becomes important in the later period as firms finish building out their densest areas. Overall, independents adopted earlier than the RBOCs, although this difference appears to be driven by the fact that independents were still using primarily electromechanical switches in 1983, while RBOCs had already invested heavily in analog technology. The data suggest that new technologies such as internet telephony will be adopted most rapidly by newly built networks such as Qwest and Level 3.

Keywords: Telecommunications; -; Adoption; -; Diffusion; -; Innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001-04-19
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00191/papers/1011002/10110249.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:joevec:v:11:y:2001:i:2:p:249-261

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/191/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Evolutionary Economics is currently edited by Uwe Cantner, Elias Dinopoulos, Horst Hanusch and Luigi Orsenigo

More articles in Journal of Evolutionary Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().