"Universal service subsidies and other state-based support schemes do not help broadband penetration rates in rural areas, according to one of the first studies of empirical results of the effectiveness of such schemes. In a report that will be seized on by critics of government subsidy and competition policies, the AEI-Brookings Joint Centre for Regulatory Studies undertook a study that mapped broadband penetration across the US measured against various federal and state-based policies governing rights-of-way, unbundling, subsidies and direct municipal network provision. The study found that universal service mechanisms and programs targeted at underserved areas do not boost broadband penetration and may even slow it, possibly by giving an artificial advantage to one type of provider or another. Likewise, tax incentives appear to have no impact. It also concluded that laws limiting municipal deployment of broadband are not statistically correlated with broadband penetration; that access to public rights-of-way by broadband providers is strongly correlated with broadband penetration; and that telecom unbundling regulations also affect penetration, but resold lines are positively correlated with it."
Every executive who has approved a connected product roadmap has made a quiet assumption: the network underneath it will still be there. That assumption is about to be tested at a scale the automotive industry has never faced. The global connected vehicle installed base is heading toward a billion units, and the cellular technology most of those vehicles depend on is scheduled to begin its retirement before the end of the decade. For automakers, fleet operators, insurers, and the telecom carriers that serve them, the question is whether the recurring revenue those services promise can survive a connectivity layer with a shorter life than the vehicle carrying it. How Scale Meets an Expiry Date Omdia research forecasts that the global connected vehicle installed base will surpass 1.05 billion units by 2035, up from 473.7 million in 2025. Few installed bases of any kind more than double in a decade, and this one signals that connectivity is moving from premium differentiator to baseline e...