13 pages., via online journal., Drawing on the increasing body of literature on policy stakeholders and the ever-growing acknowledgement that communication policy is crafted by more than just parliamentarians and formal communication regulators this paper examines the role that another set of regulators plays in communication policy: agriculture regulators. Based on a study of the United States Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS), this paper explores alternative agents of communication policy. More specifically, through document analysis we examine the way in which the Rural Utilities Service has shaped rural broadband policy in the United States over the last three decades. The implications for this research are wide, as it brings another policy actor into the policy making melee, and pushes communication policy scholars to consider the role that non-traditional communication regulators play in the communication policy making process.
"The Rural Telecommunications System is not just a technological system but a complex system of people and technology interdependent on other systems/subsystems. Therefore, the issues involved in the deployment of rural telecommunications infrastructure, if all its stakeholders are to benefit, are not always technological, but are often complex and 'messy,' cutting across various aspects of the rural society, especially in developing countries."
Using econometric models for Internet subscription and use, the authors found that estimation results indicating that price reduction will have a positive influence among existing Internet subscribers. "A model of Internet subscription itself, however, suggests that demand for access is derivative of education and work requirements." Survey data suggest that "isolation has little impact on Internet subscription, except the local isolation of Farms from their nearest town."
