The paper has interesting implications for rural broadband investment. The authors suggest that data traffic is not constrained by households using mid-speed services. “The benefits of policy interventions to support higher speeds remain somewhat speculative.”<\/p>\n
The abstract for the paper notes: <\/p>\n
Worldwide there is an ongoing policy and regulatory push to make very high speed broadband available as widely as possible. Underlying the policy interventions to support higher speeds is an implicit assumption that higher speeds will enable different (and socially valuable) use. In this paper we empirically test whether higher speed lines are associated with greater household data usage in the UK. We find that after allowing for demographic factors, higher speed in fact has a very limited relationship to traffic. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Early into the COVID pandemic lockdown, I looked at<\/a> the relatively modest speed requirements for various business collaboration applications and streaming video.<\/p>\n
