Justifi cations for Broadband Investments in Stimulus Plans with benefi ts not only to individual consumers, but also to other users and society as a whole. Atkinson identifi es network externalities, investment exter-nalities, Access to broadband Internet in particular is argued to boost productivity growth and competitiveness, cut transaction costs, improve business and mar-ket competitiveness externalities and regional externalities. Owing to these externalities, the social returns from investing in broadband infrastructure exceed the private individual returns of companies and consumers, so market forces alone will underes-timate organization and promote more effi cient social discourse and education. In his excellent paper, “The Case for a National Broadband Policy”, Atkinson (2007) suggests that broadband is different from oth-er technologies in two key ways30. Firstly, broadband is not just a consumer technology, it is “prosumer” technology that enables consumers to become pro-ducers, and fail to generate the socially-optimal level of broadband. This explains why a growing number of countries now include broadband in their defi nitions of uni-versal driving innovation and to economic growth. access/service, according to the ITU’s annual Broadband is essential for access to many advanced applications, for video streaming and teleconferenc-ing. TREG survey (for example, countries as diverse as Canada, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Switzerland and the US). Some groups in the US have even argued that broadband Internet access is a basic precursor for economic jus-tice. Indeed, the ultimate true value of “Web 2.0” lies in users being able to generate, as well as access, content and develop their own applications, innova-tions and software in order to reap the benefi ts of 31 These externalities mean that it is essential to collective intelligence and crowd sourcing. see investments in next-generation broadband as part of a nation’s broader overall economic strategy, rather than a concern only for sector regulators (Insight 6). Secondly, information is a public good (Insight 5) and broadband exhibits positive network externalities Confronting the Crisis: ICT Stimulus Plans for Economic Growth 29