See this new paper from economists Rob Shapiro and Kevin Hassett showing how artificial limits on varied pricing of broadband could severely forestall broadband adoption.
To the extent that lower-income and middle-income consumers are required to pay a greater share of network costs, we should expect a substantial delay in achieving universal broadband access. Our simulations suggest that spreading the costs equally among all consumers — the minority who use large amounts of bandwidth and the majority who use very little — will significantly slow the rate of adoption at the lower end of the income scale and extend the life of the digital divide.
If costs are shifted more heavily to those who use the most bandwidth and, therefore, are most responsible for driving up the cost of expanding network capabilities, the digital divergence among the races and among income groups can be eliminated much sooner.
