Empirical Findings

The previous chapters (Chapters 4 and 5) described the development and validation of a survey instrument for the purpose of data collection in order to examine broadband adoption, usage, and impact. Chapter 3 provided a discussion and justification of the data collection and analysis methods. This chapter presents the findings obtained from the survey that was conducted to examine the adoption, usage, and impact of broadband in UK households. The chapter is structured as follows. The next section describes the demographic profiles of the survey respondents. This is followed by a description of the findings relating to the adoption of broadband. The findings relating to the usage of broadband are then presented. This is followed by a description of the effects of broadband usage on consumers’ time allocation patterns in various daily life activities. Finally, the summary of the chapter is provided.

Development of Survey Instrument

The previous chapter (Chapter 4) described the development and validation of a survey instrument for the purpose of data collection in order to examine broadband adoption, usage and impact. Chapter 3 provided a discussion and justification of the data collection and analysis methods. This chapter presents the findings obtained from a nationwide survey that was conducted to examine the adoption, usage and impact of broadband in UK households. The chapter is structured as follows. The next section presents a response rate of the survey and descriptions of how the non-response bias test was conducted. This is followed by a description of the reliability test conducted to assess the internal consistency of the survey instrument. The findings relating to the factor analysis are then presented. Following this, an overall discussion of the instrument is presented. Finally, a summary of the chapter is provided.

Development of Survy Instrument

Chapter 2 described the proposed conceptual model that is used to understand the adoption, usage, and impact of broadband from the consumer perspective. Chapter 3 described the appropriate research approach for testing the hypotheses and to validate the proposed conceptual model. From Chapter 3 it was concluded that the survey research approach is an appropriate method to investigate the issue of broadband diffusion. Further suggestions that were provided in Chapter 3 are before conducting the final data collection a reliable survey instrument should be developed and validated. Validating an instrument is a critical step before testing a conceptual model (Boudreau et al., 2001; Straub et al., 2004). This is due to the rigour of the findings and interpretations in positivist research that are based on the solid validation of the instruments used to gather data (Boudreau et al., 2001; Straub et al., 2004). Therefore, this chapter aims to describe the development of a survey instrument designed to investigate broadband adoption, usage, and impact within UK households. By undertaking the following three stages, this led to the development of a reliable instrument: (1) to explain broadband adoption behaviour some initial factors were identified from the literature and then a decision upon how to determine them in an exploratory survey approach needed to be made; (2) content validation was performed on the itemed pools that resulted from the exploratory survey. The purpose of this step was to confirm the representativeness of items to a particular construct domain and, finally, (3) a pre-test and a pilot test were conducted utilising the obtained instrument after content validation was undertaken in order to confirm the reliability of the measures.The next section briefly re-introduces the conceptual model and provides a list of the constructs included in the various stages of the validation process. Following this, an overview of the instrument development process is provided. Then the first stage of the validation process (i.e., the exploratory survey) is presented and discussed. This is followed by the content validation process. The instrument testing process that includes the pre-test and pilot-test is described before presenting the summary of the chapter.

Implications and Future Trends

This chapter presents the implications of the research discussed in this book and outlines future research trends in the area of consumer adoption and usage of broadband. The findings of the studies detailed in this book generate a number of implications that may be relevant to policy makers, Internet service providers (ISPs), and other relevant stakeholders for increasing consumers’ adoption of broadband. The chapter begins by a discussion concerning the implications of this research for the government, followed by the implications for the Internet/broadband service providers and, ultimately, the implications for content providers and emerging electronic services. Finally, a discussion on the future trends in the area of broadband adoption and diffusion is provided.

Conclusion

This chapter provides a conclusion of the results and discussions of the UK case study research presented in this book. The chapter begins with an overview of this research in the next section. This is followed by the main conclusions drawn from this research. Following this, a discussion of the research contributions and implications of this research in terms of the theory, policy and practice is provided. This is ensued by the research limitations, and a review of the future research directions in the area of broadband diffusion and adoption. Finally, a summary of the chapter is provided.

Conceptual Model for Examining Consumer Broadband Adoption, Usage, and Impact

An examination of previous literature in the information systems (IS) area illustrates that researchers have not yet undertaken research on broadband in the area of consumer diffusion, including the adoption, usage, and impact in the household (Crabtree, 2003; Oh et al., 2003; Stanton, 2004). Instead, most of the research associated with broadband has mainly focused on examining the macro level factors leading to adoption in a country (Crabtree, 2003; Oh et al., 2003; Stanton, 2004). Recently conducted studies highlight the need to understand adoption and diffusion of broadband from the household consumer perspective (Crabtree, 2003; Oh et al., 2003; Stanton, 2004). The limitation to studying adoption at a micro level has resulted in a lack of appropriate conceptual models specific to broadband. As pursued in previous adoption studies (Davis, 1989; Oh et al., 2003; Venkatesh & Brown, 2001), constructing a conceptual model specific to broadband diffusion at the household consumer level necessitates the review, identification, and integration of the relevant factors related with adoption, usage, and impact of technology previously examined in IS studies. Therefore, this chapter reviews and assesses the appropriateness of previous technology adoption models and constructs to study broadband diffusion. Then, this chapter provides further theoretical justification for selecting the constructs that are used to study broadband diffusion, formulate the hypotheses and finally draw a conceptual model of broadband diffusion. The chapter is structured as follows. The following section provides a review of the theoretical models of technology diffusion and adoption. This section also provides a brief discussion of the models applied to investigate broadband-related issues from the consumer perspective. Progressing upon this, the section thereafter briefly discusses the foundations of the proposed model and also provides an overall description of the proposed conceptual model. This is followed by an elaboration of the broadband diffusion model and the justification of the inclusion of the attitudinal, normative, control, behavioural intention, adoption behaviour, usage behaviour and impact constructs, and formulates the hypotheses by presenting theoretical explanations, past empirical findings, and practical examples..Finally, a summary of the chapter is provided.

Factors Affecting Consumer Adoption of Broadband in Developing Countries

This chapter empirically examines factors affecting the adoption of broadband in the developing countries of Bangladesh and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). In the case of Bangladesh, attitudinal, normative, and control factors—discussed in the UK case study in Division I of this book—were used and adapted in order to provide insights about broadband adopters and non-adopters within the developing nations. In order to examine the adoption of broadband in the KSA, a number of variables were employed, which also included some of the variables discussed in the UK case study in Division I. As the Internet was introduced comparatively late in Bangladesh (in 1996), in early 2004 the total penetration of Internet within the country was only 0.25 percent (Totel, 2004). It was suggested that the major obstacles associated with low Internet penetration were the low economic status and still-developing infrastructure within the country (Totel, 2004). A recent media report further emphasised that “Bangladesh is not anywhere on the global broadband map, but it is doing its best to get online. Local service provider, DNS SatComm has started deploying fixed wireless gear from Cambridge Broadband and will offer access to government offices, and other commercial entities” (Malik, 2005). It has also been suggested that Internet connection is slow and costly and not affordable by the general public (Hossain, 2004). Given the situations of Bangladesh in terms of demography, telecommunication infrastructure, and affordability of Internet by people, it was felt that understanding factors including cost of Internet access and subscription affecting consumer adoption might help to encourage further diffusion of high speed Internet. In the KSA, the Internet has taken some time to diffuse and is therefore seen as a relatively new technology. The KSA first started with dial up connections and then moved on to adopt broadband and satellite connections to provide better data communication services to its citizens. However, even with the availability of broadband technology, the rate of adoption is considered to be relatively poor in comparison to other developed countries such as the UK, as well as newly industrialised leading broadband users, such as South Korea (Oh et al., 2003). This poor connectivity is often claimed to be caused by website filtration in the region. Consequently, broadband adoption has been slower than expected in the region. Furthermore, a survey of existing literature on broadband adoption suggests that although both macro and micro level studies were conducted in order to understand the deployment of broadband in the developed world and leading countries such as South Korea, none of these studies focus upon developing countries, such as Bangladesh and the KSA. Although this could be attributed to the slow infrastructure development and low rate of adoption within the two countries, this has provided the motivation for undertaking exploratory research in order to develop an understanding of the perceptions of consumers regarding broadband adoption in these developing nations. Thus, this chapter aims to explore the reasons for the slow adoption of broadband in Bangladesh and the KSA by examining the individual level factors affecting broadband uptake in both cases. The research will thereby seek to adapt the individual level factors from the UK case study (Division I) and attempt to examine if and why the adapted factors affect consumers’ attitudes towards the adoption of broadband in the countries. The chapter begins with a brief discussion of the theoretical basis and variables employed to examine broadband adoption. This is followed by a brief discussion of the utilized research methods. The findings are then presented and discussed. Finally, a conclusion to the chapter is provided.

Broadband in Dutch Education

Broadband potentially has benefits for education, but in order to be beneficial it has to be used. In this chapter, we have investigated from a user perspective: (1) to what extent broadband is used in Dutch education (in the classroom as well as in the organisation as a whole); (2) the experiences teachers have with broadband, including impediments and added value. This was done by a survey under 221 Dutch teachers, ICT-coordinators, and school boards. Results show that teachers, ICT coordinators, and school boards are interested in using broadband in their schools as they see the added value, but there seems to be an impasse: without infrastructure, there are no services and without services there is no need for infrastructure. Schools can break out of the causality dilemma by giving an impulse to the market by combining forces and demand. Moreover, teachers need to be trained in using the new tools and service.

A Longitudinal Study to Investigate Consumer/User Adoption and Use of Broadband in the Netherlands

The Netherlands has experienced a high uptake of broadband Internet amongst its population. However, the question remains whether there are any differences between people with a broadband connection to people with a narrowband connection. The central research question in this chapter is therefore: how do Dutch internet users with a broadband connection differ from people with a narrowband connection in terms of demographics (age, gender, education), internet experience (experience, frequency, intensity of use), expectations (of narrowband users), experiences (of broadband users), annoyances, and patterns of internet usage? Secondly, this chapter addresses the question of whether and how these differences change over time. The chapter uses a model of technology adoption and use that is built upon different theories such as diffusion of innovations, uses and gratifications, and media choice theory. The results are based on two online questionnaires, in 2003 and 2004/2005 (N = 2404 and N = 1102) with regard to current Internet behaviour in the Netherlands. Results show that broadband users are heavier Internet users and that broadband technology is mostly a matter of comfort, not of complete new ways of using the Internet.