Factors Influencing the Temporal Diffusion of Broadband Adoption: Evidence from Oklahoma

This paper examines the shifting influence of household characteristics and telecommunications infrastructure on the residential broadband adoption decision for Oklahoma residents between 2003 and 2006. In particular, the spread of wired telecommunications infrastructure (namely cable Internet and Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL)) is examined, along with the effect that this diffusion has had on broadband access rates. The data indicates that the gap in broadband access rates between rural and urban areas has remained relatively constant over this period despite increased levels of cable and DSL throughout the state. In addition, an inter-temporal decomposition shows that the increasing levels of infrastructure are not the dominant cause of higher broadband rates over time. Instead, shifting returns to specific characteristics (namely income) are found to be the primary contributors.