Impact of Broadband Internet on the Well-being of Rural Counties: A Benefit-cost Analysis

Abstract

Access to broadband internet is of paramount importance for the support of economic activity in both urban and rural communities. Having access to high-speed internet is essential for rural communities to attract new enterprises, support the expansion of existing businesses, as well as for attracting and retaining their local population. Variations of economic activity directly impact the amount of tax collected for the support of the local community. Having a reliable high-speed internet infrastructure contributes to the protection and potential expansion of the tax revenue for rural counties. To achieve the successful planning and deployment of the required rural broadband infrastructure, towns and local governments incur different costs. Even when there might be federal funding available to promote the implementation of rural broadband, often, local fund matching is required. Also, there are negative externalities associated with high-speed internet, some of these being cyber-bullying, online gaming addiction, and online gambling addiction. A benefit-cost analysis (BCA) of a broadband project is conducted for a hypothetical county defined using data from various governmental agencies. A proposed model considers the change in tax revenue as a means to monetize the impact of rural broadband. The cost associated with treating problematic internet use is monetized as mental health expenditure. A sensitivity analysis of the BCA reveals that the initial revenue of the county, as well as the year-over-year population change, impact the net present value of the broadband infrastructure projects to a greater extent versus other model parameters like the unemployment rate.

Department(s)

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering

Keywords and Phrases

Benefit-cost analysis; Decision analysis; Infrastructure system; Rural broadband

International Standard Book Number (ISBN)

978-099751959-4

Document Type

Article - Conference proceedings

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2024 American Society of Engineering Management, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jan 2020

This document is currently not available here.

Share

 
COinS