Measuring Internet diffusion in Italy

This paper reports about the construction of a database containing daily observations on registrations of second level domain names underneath the ".it" ccTLD in order to analyse the diffusion of Internet among families and businesses. The section of the database referring to domains registered by individuals is analysed. The penetration rate over the relevant population of potential adopters is computed at highly disaggregated geographical level (province). A concentration analysis is carried out to investigate whether the geographical distribution of Internet is less concentrated than population and income suggesting a diffusive effect. Regression analysis is carried out using demographic, social, economic and infrastructure indicators Finally we briefly describe the further developments of our research.