After broadband access, what next? What role do metrics play in understanding “information societies”? And, more important, in shaping their policies? Beyond counting people with broadband access, how can economic and social metrics inform broadband policies, help evaluate their outcomes, and create useful models for achieving national goals? This timely volume not only examines the traditional questions about broadband, like availability and access, but also explores and evaluates new metrics more applicable to the evolving technologies of information access. Beyond Broadband Access brings together a stellar array of media policy scholars from a wide range of disciplines—economics, law, policy studies, computer science, information science, and communications studies. Importantly, it provides a well-rounded, international perspective on theoretical approaches to databased communications policymaking in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Showcasing a diversity of approaches, this invaluable collection helps to meet myriad challenges to improving the foundations for communications policy development.

This volume not only examines traditional questions about broadband, such as availability and access, but also explores and evaluates metrics that are more applicable to the evolving technologies of information access. Importantly, the book provides a well-rounded, international perspective on theoretical approaches to communications policymaking in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Showcasing a diversity of approaches, this collection aims to help meet the myriad challenges involved in improving the development of communications policy around the world.

Beyond the Internet offers a philosophy of research that illustrates the benefits of broadening one’s approach. The message for researchers, librarians, teachers, parents, and students is simple: The Internet is not a complete reference source and is often inaccurate. The issue is not what you cannot find on the Internet, but what you miss if you only consult the Internet. To fully investigate a subject, you need also to consult a wide range of traditional resources that have not been digitized, including documents and correspondence, government records, and holdings in private collections. Besides these sources, researchers should appreciate the benefits of interviews and on-site visits. These sources provide the threads that links our past to our present. The book also emphasizes the difference between acquiring facts that answer a specific question and the process of analytical thinking that goes into assessing a subject. Serendipitous finds and new interpretations based on previously unknown sources require research in original materials. The author uses challenges culled from her own work in American history and as a reference book editor to illustrate the different resources described. These anecdotes lend a personal element to the highly practical advice contained in the chapters. Each chapter describes a specific resource, provides relevant case studies, and offers tips and techniques for using that resource. This updated edition explores how the Internet has become an even more compromised tool in recent years by enabling artificial intelligence and social media to manipulate information. This book examines the need to pursue traditional research techniques and how to use them to validate information from the Internet. If you want to research such topics as the origins of terrorism, the complicated background to hostilities in the Middle East, the evolution of U.S. politics, or the decline in basic reading and math skills, you need to consult original materials. Students should learn what sources are available and how to use them so they can make informed decisions about everything from elections to foreign policy. Whatever your interests, you need to diversify your approach and go Beyond the Internet.

Foreword -- The shifting digital paradigm in Latin America -- The demand gap: drivers and public policies -- Regional and international connectivity -- Broadband, digitization and development -- Mobile broadband: the urgent need for speedier roll-out -- Cloud computing, structural change and job creation in SMEs -- National broadband plans -- Broadband and industrial policy: the Korean experience -- Net neutrality: debate and policies -- The advance of cloud computing -- The challenge of over-the-top content and services

The western economic and financial crisis began with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 and led the European Union countries into recession. After this, governments started to implement austerity measures, such as cuts in public spending, including public subsidies and jobs, and rising prices. In this context, Europe started to experience a wave of protest movements. Individuals started to use the manifold interactive digital media environment to both fight against the austerity measures and find alternative ways of claiming their democratic rights. Inspired by the 2011 Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York (USA), the Occupy LSX encampment in Central London (UK), The Outraged (Los Indignados)/ 15M encampment in Central Madrid (Spain), the Syntagma Square’s Outraged movement in Athens (Greece) and the March 12th Movement in Lisbon (Portugal), although short-lived, epitomize an emerging alternative politics and participation via the media. This wave has promoted a debate on how the realm of politics is changing, as citizens broaden their ideas of what political issues and participation mean. Beyond the Internet examines the technological dimension of the recent wave of protest movements in the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Ireland. Offering an opportunity to achieve a better understanding of the dynamics between society, politics and technology, this volume questions the essentialist attributes of the Internet that fuel the techno-centric discourse. The contributors illustrate how all these protest movements were active in the social media and garnered high levels of media attention and public visibility, in spite of their failure to achieve their political goals. As intra-elite dissent was pivotal in understanding the Arab uprisings, the coalition of national ruling elites with European institutions in terms of austerity strategy is essential in understanding the limits of media/technology power and, therefore, the dissociation between communication and representative power.

Fifth-generation cellular radio access networks are currently being standardized as 5G New Radio (NR). The primary objectives of 5G NR are to provide enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) and ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) capabilities. This innovative resource analyzes these applications in detail to help readers understand how the flexible design of NR makes it suitable for a wide range of use cases and applications. The rationale behind the design decisions made during the NR standardization process are explored. Readers will be able to understand the performance limits of NR when applied to non-eMBB scenarios and how NR compares to 4G and IEEE 802.x connectivity solutions for such scenarios. The main features of 5G phase 2 are explored, as well as the use cases that can be addressed by 5G phase 2. The mathematical models are included to help explain the future evolution of NR in Release 16 and beyond. This is the only book that describes both the standards features of NR and the mathematical models/open research issues for 5G, appealing to both industry practitioners and academic researchers.