Digital Divide Isn’t Just a Rural Problem

The digital divide – the “haves” and “have nots” when it comes to internet access and use – is an abiding concern for telecommunication and internet policymakers at all levels of government. The Federal Communications Commission’s focus on deployment means policymakers miss an entirely different dimension of the problem – broadband adoption. Ensuring the ubiquity of high-speed networks is a laudable goal. But if a lot of people are not subscribing even when networks pass their residences, that’s a different problem. Analysis of broadband adoption data shows that:

• The digital divide is more about consumer adoption than it is about network deployment;
• The problem extends to non-rural and rural areas alike, and;
• Household economics is a larger driver of non-adoption decisions than geography.

Lesson 1: More non-broadband subscribers live in non-rural areas than in rural America.  Although a higher share of rural households lacks a home broadband subscription than non-rural ones (by a 21.2% to 15.4% margin), the number of households without a broadband subscription is larger in non-rural areas.

Lesson 2: Nearly 80% of the broadband adoption gap is due to factors other than network deployment. It turns out that a number of factors – such as monthly fee, cost of the computer, and the capacity of smartphones, far outpace network issues as reasons people offer for not subscribing to broadband. In fact, cost factors – either monthly fee or a computer – are the most important reasons (when combined) that people do not subscribe to broadband.

A more expansive examination of the digital divide underscores the national scope of the problem and draws attention to factors such as affordability as part of the overall digital divide. Policy solutions for the digital divide should be flexible enough to serve the needs of a nation that is diverse geographically and demographically.

[John B. Horrigan is a senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute. He was research director at the Federal Communications Commission for the development of the National Broadband Plan.]