Several leading Consultancy firms have produced studies that show a clear connection between the broadband dissemination and growth in GDP.

The World Bank has found that in low- and middle-income countries every 10 percentage point increase in broadband penetration accelerates economic growth by 1.38 percentage points — more than in high-income countries and more than for other telecommunications services.

To read this report in full from Broadband Europe, see:
www.broadband-europe.eu/Pages/NewsDetail.aspx?ItemID=727

Also see:

Building Broadband Strategies and Policies for Development
Executive summary: A growing number of countries are seeking to spur broadband development. This report offers policymakers and regulators an analysis of approaches that leading countries have taken in expanding their broadband markets, with a focus on the Republic of Korea. In addition, case studies cover Finland, France, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The analysis suggests policies and regulations that developing countries could consider to support the growth of broadband.

The state of broadband. By late 2009 the number of broadband subscriptions—both wireline and wireless—had crossed 1 billion globally. Most of these connections are in the developed world, with the developing world lagging significantly.

Redefining broadband. This report proposes that broadband be defined beyond the traditional notion of a specific type of network connectivity or minimum transmission speed. Rather, it proposes that broadband be viewed as an ―ecosystem‖ that includes its networks, the services that the networks carry, the applications they deliver, and users. Each of these components has been transformed by technological, business, and market developments.

Defining broadband to include both the supply and demand sides of the market also leads to a rethinking of approaches to spur broadband access and use. It is critical to create an enabling environment for supply-side growth in terms of access to networks and services—but is also important to facilitate demand for and adoption of broadband.

Strategies and policies. Countries‘ approaches to broadband often include strategies that lead to the formulation of policies and regulations. These strategies evolve with markets and focus on building the supply of, and demand for, broadband. They create the base for policy implementation in the initial stage, creating the strategic framework and institutions that implement strategies through policies and regulations.

To derive a list of these policies and regulations, this report focuses on the Republic of Korea—which is not only one of the most successful broadband markets, but has also deployed a wide range of polices and regulations. Policies and programs for broadband market development can be split into three components that overlap but also follow a logical sequence: promotion, oversight, and universalization.

Broadband building blocks. This report proposes three building blocks that countries may wish to consider as they attempt to develop their broadband markets. These building blocks are not the only tools available for growth, nor are they applicable to all countries. Rather, they represent emerging good practices that countries can study and adapt to their own goals, circumstances, and resources.

• Be visionary yet flexible. Most of the countries surveyed have, early in the growth of their broadband markets, developed national broadband strategies that laid out their visions and service goals. These served as frameworks in which policies and regulations were developed to implement the strategies though public-private partnerships. But such strategies were not static: they adapted to evolving markets and accommodated newer technologies. By 2009 all the countries surveyed had, or were developing, a national broadband strategy.
• Use competition to promote market growth. The more successful countries in the survey used collaborative approaches between the public and private sectors to promote and later universalize broadband services. In some cases, public investments aimed at specific gaps or triggered larger private investments. Further, every country surveyed relied on competition to expand the broadband market. Some focused on facility competition, while others focused on service competition. The more successful countries generally also benefited from inter-modal competition, notably between digital subscriber line (DSL), cable modem, and third-generation (3G) wireless technologies. Each country tried to create level playing fields and competitive markets to ensure fast private sector–led growth of broadband services.
• Facilitate demand. The successful countries in the survey developed and implemented demand facilitation policies in the initial stages of market development to raise broadband awareness among users, make services more affordable, and expand networks and services to the widest population in the shortest time possible. Other countries have used public funds for more than network rollout, and have supported research, manufacturing promotion, content development, user awareness, ICT skill development and digital literacy programs.

Application to developing countries. Countries across the developing world are looking to increase access to, and use of, broadband. In particular, broadband is seen as a general purpose technology that stimulates growth in the wider economy and creates new business opportunities. Given varying political and economic circumstances, however, it is impossible to provide universal solutions. Therefore, the findings of this report will have different implications for different countries.

This report develops a long list of policies and programs framed within a strategic framework that allows specific solutions tailored to countries‘ circumstances. The building blocks identified are useful everywhere because they focus on improving incentives and the climate for private investment—a policy that even highly resource constrained countries should be able to follow. Further, the report finds that policies and programs implemented fall into three stages—promotion when the market was incipient, oversight as competition begins to drive growth, and universalization as the market matures. This report provides emerging best practices to support broadband market growth at each stage.

Developing countries could also use the experiences of the surveyed countries to find ways to leverage even limited resources for maximum impact and develop programs based on demand and market evolution. To help countries in these efforts, an upcoming broadband strategies toolkit, being developed by the GICT Department, will provide more detail, and a wider range of case studies, on how to convert the broad strategic and policy ideas in this report to practical instruments used in policymaking, regulation, and implementation of broadband network development.

This Executive Summary was sourced from, and to download the report in full see:
www.infodev.org/en/Publication.756.html