An Empirical Analysis of Mobile Broadband Adoption

The purpose of this paper is to analyze factors promoting mobile broadband adoption in OECD 34 member countries. Promoting rapid nationwide adoption of broadband services becomes an important national agenda for many countries. The U.S., for example, announced a National Broadband Plan, which aims at providing 100 million households with access to 100 Mbps broadband by 2020. To date the development of mobile broadband has been proceeding rapidly and its access speed amounts to 150Mbps for the latest 4G (4th Generation mobile system), which is the same as fixed broadband. As mobile broadband, consisting of 3G and 4G, had been adopted to some extent in OECD member countries, to implement the finest policy for rapid 5G adoption we must study the factors of mobile broadband adoption. The result of this analysis shows (i) the launch of smartphones promote mobile broadband adoption; (ii) the result of coefficient of HHI indicates the competition of mobile carriers promotes mobile broadband adoption; and (iii) the positive coefficient of FTTH indicates backhauls of fiber lines are important for mobile broadband adoption. These results mentioned above provide an important basis for national policy of rapid 5G adoption.