Household Demand for Broadband Internet Service

Gregory Rosston (), Scott Savage () and Donald Waldman ()
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Gregory Rosston: Public Policy Program, Stanford University

No 09-008, Discussion Papers from Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: As part of the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) National Broadband Report to Congress, we have been asked to conduct a survey to help determine consumer valuations of different aspects of broadband Internet service. Our empirical results show that reliability and speed are important characteristics of Internet service. The representative household is willing to pay about $20 per month for more reliable service and $45-48 for an increase in speed. Willingness-to-pay for speed increases with education, income and online experience, and decreases with age. Rural households value connection speed by about $3 more per month than urban households. Households are also willing to pay an additional $4 for the ability to interact with health specialists online, about $3 for the ability to download full-length movies, and about $5 for the ability to place free phone calls over the Internet and see the person being called. Using these results, we calculate that a representative household would be willing to pay about $59 per month for a less reliable Internet service with fast speed, about $85 for a reliable Internet service with fast speed and the priority feature, and about $98 for a reliable Internet service with fast speed plus all other activities.

Keywords: broadband; choice experiment; experience; internet; willingness-to-pay (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C24 C25 D12 O38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-01, Revised 2010-02
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (52)

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