You’re reading the Benton Foundation’s Weekly Round-up, a recap of the biggest (or most overlooked) telecommunications stories of the week. The round-up is delivered via e-mail each Friday; to get your own copy, subscribe at www.benton.org/user/register
Robbie's Round-Up for the Week of August 29-September 2, 2016
Efforts to attract entrepreneurs and “creative class” workers have become important components of economic development strategies for rural communities. One commonly held perception is that broadband access is important for these types of employees; however, empirical research on the relationship between the two is generally lacking. This study uses county-level data from the continental US to estimate spatial and first-differenced regression models on the association between broadband and measures of entrepreneurship/creative-class employees in rural areas. The results suggest that high levels of broadband adoption may in fact serve to reduce the numbers of entrepreneurs and creative class employees in rural America. These findings serve as a reminder that broadband is not a panacea for all issues of importance to rural communities and provide evidence that there may be negative implications associated with efforts to increase levels of rural broadband access and adoption.
[Kelsey Conley is a Ph.D. student and Brian Whitacre is a professor and extension economist at Oklahoma State University.]
[Commentary] Secretary Hillary Clinton published a plan to rebuild America’s infrastructure earlier this year, and is now making infrastructure investments a key part of her economic pitch to the American people. Her plan focuses on key needs like road and bridge repair, investing in public transit, increasing freight rail capacity, renovating airports and the air traffic control system, increasing broadband access, upgrading water and sewer systems, and modernizing the nation’s antiquated power grid.
Her proposal costs $275 billion and is a good start, but a report by the American Society of Civil Engineers says that the country actually needs $1.6 trillion in infrastructure spending at all levels by 2020 to bring us up to date and to make America competitive with the rest of the world. Years ago, the Chicago architect Daniel Burnham wisely said “make no small plans, for they do not have the power to stir men’s souls.” The country’s needs are indeed great, and Secretary Clinton, as president, can address those needs, and make a transformational decisions, by following Daniel Burnham’s wisdom.
[Glickman is a former Congressman and Secretary of Agriculture and currently is a Senior Fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center]
Internet service providers (ISPs) in the US are getting faster on average all the time. Most ISPs show gains in our PCMag Speed Index score year to year.
There are only a couple of notable exceptions. If we narrow things down to the "major" ISPs—those with the biggest footprint nationally, and the biggest customer base, we see a major change in our Fastest ISP coverage that dates back to when we started the series in 2010. This is the first time that Verizon FiOS isn't a clear winner. FiOS certainly is a winner—but FiOS's PCMag Speed Index is in an almost perfect tie with Comcast's Xfinity service. Comcast has been pushing speeds ever faster in the face of growing competition and regulation that prevented its merger with TWC. That has translated into great things for customers, obviously. The differences between the two services are stark, of course: FiOS fiber has symmetrical speeds (in fact, its national upload speed average is higher than its download speed!); Xfinity's cable-based service is all about download speed, reaching a 59.4Mbps number; it's the 10.6Mbps upload that drags down its index. It all leads to a mathematical tie that's almost too close to call.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen Tim Kaine (D-VA) confirmed that the Clinton campaign will establish a "protective pool," at least for his own campaign travel.
The Clinton campaign has been using Donald Trump's total lack of a normal press pool to delay ramping up their coverage to a full protective pool--the group of reporters that travel with the candidate on the same plane. The campaign has indicated to some reporters it would not establish the protective pool before Labor Day. "We are not on the plane together," Sen Kaine said about his traveling press corps. "But that is going to change in about a week. And I think that is fairly common during campaigns that you often fly in small planes and that you get to the end, you start flying in larger planes. I think that is something, yeah, as we get into the thick of the campaign in Labor Day, that is going to change. I don't even think Donald Trump allowed the American press to go with him yesterday when he went to Mexico. Which was highly unusual."
A growing share of Americans are reading e-books on tablets and smartphones rather than dedicated e-readers, but print books remain much more popular than books in digital formats.
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