I am attempting to establish performance measures that would gauge the economic development impact of broadband deployment, especially in rural communities. Traditionally, economic development is measured through capital investment, job creation and/or new business starts. Since there is no direct linkage between access to low-cost gigabit level internet and these factors, how do I forecast impact that would help trigger new investment in what is now considered the "fourth utility?'
If "there is no direct linkage between access to low-cost gigabit level internet and these factors" then it is natural to assume that broadband internet does not have any significant impact on 'classic' economic development (especially in rural communities: it is hard to imagine how broadband might significantly help in starting, say, a new dairy farm). And 'non-classic', IT-oriented, broadband-dependent enterprises are not likely to be found in rural communities.
Thank you for your input. I would agree that broadband infrastructure has limited application to many portions of a rural economy. In the cexample of the dairy farm, one might argue that "advanced agriculture" practices (e.g. in-field cameras, health monitoring devices, milk output data) would allow the dairy farmer to collect and share information in real-time and, theoretically, improve production and cost efficiency. Would these improvements generate the returns to justify the investment? I do not know anything about the economics of diary farms, but I doubt it.
All the "practices of advanced agriculture" that you named require a relatively fast LOCAL connection (from field or barn to the farmers house), not broadband internet connection. Also, most data from monitoring devices are very small in size (a few numbers or a still image), and 2G mobile network is often enough for them - even if you want to access them from somewhere outside the "farm".
So I still think that broadband internet has nothing to do with businesses in rural areas except for personal entertainment of the "farmers" (although I can not prove this with any statistics). All business-related questions may be solved with old-fashioned "not-so-broad"-band internet (like mobile GSM/GPRS).
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