The Importance of Broadband for Socio-Economic Development: A Perspective from Rural Australia

Abstract

Advanced connectivity offers rural communities prospects for socio-economic development. Despite Australia's national broadband infrastructure plans, inferior availability and quality of rural Internet connections remain persistent issues. This article examines the impact of limited connectivity on rural socio-economic opportunities, drawing from the views of twelve citizens from the Boorowa local government area in New South Wales. The available fixed wireless and satellite connections in Boorowa are slow and unreliable, and remote regions in the municipality are still without any Internet access. Participants identified four key areas in their everyday lives that are impacted by insufficient connectivity: business development, education, emergency communication, and health. Rural citizens often already face challenges in these areas, and infrastructure advancements in urban spaces can exacerbate rural-urban disparities. Participants' comments demonstrated apprehension that failure to improve connectivity would result in adverse long-term consequences for the municipality. This article suggests that current broadband policy frameworks require strategic adaptations to account for the socio-economic and geographic contexts of rural communities. In order to narrow Australia's rural-urban digital divide, infrastructure developments should be prioritised in the most underserved regions.

Measuring the digital divide at regional level. A spatial analysis of the inequalities in digital development of households and individuals in Europe

“…However, it is known that the internet and broadband penetration decreases as distance increases. So, it's still an important issue for large territories like the US, Canada or Australia, where access to reliable and fast digital connectivity is a perennial problem (Freeman et al, 2016). This gave rise to a second level of analysis of the divide based on types of use (Scheeders et al 2017, van Deursen et al 2015, which was in line with the EU's most recent definition, according to which the DD does not only contemplate the population that has access to the Internet and other digital technologies, but also reflects concerns about the use of commercial and government services, putting emphasis on the groups without digital access that get left behind and are missing opportunities (European Commission, 2010).…”

“…Research related to ICT applications and services has a more recent origin (Falch and Henten, 2017) and the issue has become a major policy concern. There is currently talk of a third level of analysis of the DD, which focuses on the beneficial results of Internet use (Wei et al, 2011;Van Deursen et al, 2014), making it clear that inequalities occur when, despite access to and frequent and extensive use of ICTs, this does not lead to beneficial socio-economic results (Van Deursen et al, 2015;Baller et al, 2016) Even so, there is an ongoing debate on the approach to the DD which focuses exclusively on inequalities in access to the Internet (Fuchs, 2009;Selwyn, 2004;Van Dijk, 2006) especially in those territories (rural areas, less economically advanced regions, geographically isolated populations) where the limited provision of ICT infrastructure and the activities linked to them (online) will be subject to accessibility to infrastructures and the quality of internet connections (Hale et al 2010;Freeman et al, 2016). In fact, although this is not the case in all developed countries such as the US or Australia, in most european countries, a large proportion of the population has a connection to the Internet, and accordingly having a connection is no longer considered to be an element that generates digital inequality, Thus, measuring the DD on the basis of access to Internet in Europe started to be questioned when broadband and digital devices became more commonplace (Scheerder, et al, 2017) and superfast broadband began to be seen as an essential service to foster economic growth and social development (Broadband Commission, 2016).…”

“…From the perspective of a geographical analysis of the DD (geographical areas), the main indicators and indices created by different institutions to measure digital development do not reflect the complexity of this concept and have usually been applied at country level (Ruiz-Rodríguez et al., 2018). Meanwhile, the study for other territorial levels, such as rural/urban areas is undertaken from the perspective of the digital inclusion of the rural population in view of the lack of access to infrastructures and/or individual ICT skills (Freeman et al, 2016;Salemink et al, 2017). Choosing the country level for geographical analyses of the DD may therefore conceal intra-national differences in access to and use of ICTs (Pick and Nishida, 2015) as states have large socio-economic disparities at regional level (Beugelsdijk et al, 2017 andIammarino et al, 2018;Charron et al, 2015).…”

‘Although we're isolated, we're not really isolated’: The value of information and communication technology for older people in rural Australia

“…However, there is little qualitative work exploring the experiences of rural older adults using ICTs, and the impact on broader experiences of wellness. This is problematic in the Australian context, as the roll‐out of the National Broadband Network is inconsistent, with the quality of ICT infrastructure varying across and within rural places . Consequently, this study will examine how ICT use by rural older people facilitates interactions between themselves and their environments, thereby increasing opportunities to achieve wellness.…”

Technological literacy and interrupted internet access

“…The research for this article is part of a larger project investigating the varying circumstances of rural connectivity that started in Boorowa (population 1200), NSW, a predominantly agricultural community located just over 100 km north of Australia's capital city, Canberra. Previous fieldwork included a colloquium with local authorities to attain official views of NBN developments in the area, and a workshop with community leaders to explore how connectivity affects local socioeconomic development (Freeman, Park, Middleton, & Allen, 2016;Park et al, 2015). This research extends these works to investigate everyday internet use in local residents' homes and small businesses.…”