Determinants of broadband access and affordability: An analysis of a community survey on the digital divide

Abstract

Broadband access in the home is a necessity, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Increasingly, connectivity is of vital importance for school, work, family, and friends. Existing international research on the implementation of broadband has studied its adoption patterns with a focus on the rural/urban digital divide. This paper explores the digital divide in a case study of the seventh largest city, by population, in the United States; San Antonio is a majority-minority city where over half of the people are Hispanic. This paper focuses on the five key affordability factors that drive broadband adoption. Researchers test social exclusion theory, the structural facets of poverty and social marginality to ascertain its potential impact on broadband access. The authors conducted a survey in both English and Spanish to learn more about the affordability factors that influence the broadband digital divide. Through our analysis, we found evidence that four of the factors (geographical disparities, profit-based discrimination, technology deployment cost, and socio-economic factors) played a role in the digital divide in this case study. The results of this study demonstrate that the digital divide is not exclusively a rural/urban digital divide, but can also occur in an intra-city context. This is especially evident in low-income areas within the city because they have substantially lower broadband adoption rates. The results of this study demonstrate the importance of looking closely at issues of social exclusion of marginalized groups and the affordability of broadband access intra-city.

Keywords: Affordability; Broadband; Community survey; Digital divide; Internet access; Social exclusion theory; Survey research.

Fig. 1

Sampling plan for survey respondents.

Fig. 2

Percent without home broadband connection in Bexar County.

Fig. 3

Broadband by income.

Fig. 4

Major broadband carriers.