Broadband in the home pilot study: Suburban Hobart

This paper reports on a pilot study conducted throughout 2010 in inner suburban Hobart. The aims of the project are threefold. Firstly, it seeks to develop a fuller understanding of existing domestic broadband consumption and its relationship to other forms and patterns of media and technology consumption. Secondly, it attempts to gain insight into domestic consumers' expectations and imagined scenarios of use for fast broadband. Thirdly, it compares the expectations of providers (policy makers, engineers, entrepreneurs) with the previously mentioned end-users, to examine overlap, intersection, and divergence. This paper presents some of the preliminary findings from these intimate portraits of present and imagined future domestic broadband consumption, focusing in particular on aims one and two.