Municipal Efforts to Promote Residential Broadband

Abstract

The key reason for including this chapter in this book is that the development of more advanced forms of e-government requires that residences have high-speed broadband. Without such connectivity, the advanced forms of service provision and exchange are simply not feasible. The potential benefit of delivering e-government services to entities outside government–in particular, individuals, households, or small organizations–is at least equal to the benefits that can be realized by performing governmentto- government processes electronically. Meeting citizen and small business expectations for efficiently performing electronic transactions over the Internet, however, depends on the design of the e-government application (which government can control), as well as the speed and throughput capacity of the digital communications connection (which government may influence but does not control). This chapter discusses issues surrounding municipal promotion of residential broadband, and the authors’ proposed resolution of such issues, along with suggestions for further research.