During our eNitiate Visual Radio show this past Wednesday, I heard of a term that intrigued me. Broadband economy. Yep…when I first heard this I thought “what sort of economy is that?” But before I dive in, I had promised on air that I will be doing a follow up post on #SONA2015, but the state of the nation address has so many events so I would rather leave the summary thereof with my fellow eNitiater, Bra Willy.
[blockquote width=’100′]
CLICK HERE TO READ BRA WILLY’S SONA2015 POST
[/blockquote]
The text book definition of a broadband economy according to this source is “the product of the build-out of low-cost, high-speed communications and information technology on both the global and local levels.”Â
Here’s a video of a keynote address by Virginia state senator Mark Warner  at The Emerging Mobile Broadband Economy and its New Business Models event.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i17OUsaUgmg&w=700]
So as promised here are 3 golden things to know about the broadband economy :
- Nairobi has been recognised as the “most intelligent city in Africa”, 2 years in a row, for its conscious steps in building a broadband economy. The African city is the sole continent representative on the Intelligent Community Forum’s shortlist. This achievement comes as no surprise considering how Kenya is at the fore front as a digital hub on the continent.
- Broadband technology is a contributor to economic growth at several levels. First, the deployment of broadband technology across business enterprises improves productivity by facilitating the adoption of more efficient business processes (e.g., marketing, inventory optimization, and streamlining of supply chains). Second, extensive deployment of broadband accelerates innovation by introducing new consumer applications and services (e.g., new forms of commerce and financial intermediation). All this was taken from this source.
- This is the case of consumer surplus, which has also been found to be affected by the positive externalities of broadband. Consumer surplus is defined as the amount that consumers benefit from purchasing a product for a price that is less than what they would be willing to pay.  For example, the smartphone market will get even more saturated. This year Acer is said to introduce their device at a cost that is expected to be <5000[ZAR]. Furthermore Microsoft Lumia is also expected to launch a smartphone to possibly retail at <2ooo [ZAR]. Functionality innovation will be the ultimate  decider now and moving forth instead of hefty cost. This will result in surplus for the consumer, this is a direct benefit of broadband economy.
In conclusion, do you think high speed broadband is the next best thing to increasing economic growth? What are your thoughts?
