1. The number of buyers, sellers and entrants

2. The degree of product differentiation

3. The amount and cost of information about the product price and quality

4. The conditions for entrance and exit.

Examining the first condition, buyer, sellers and entrants, we can conclude that Internet Service Providers have huge numbers of buyers. According to the US Commerce Department’s Census Bureau, in 2000 (among households with two to four persons) approximately 47 percent had internet access (Pastore, 1). The number of households in the years since has most certainly increased. In seller’s portion of this market, for our region of KY, there are approximately 500 internet service providers (http://www.thelist.com/areacode/859/). There are most likely many entrants at any given time as well.

Broadband connections are generally a little different market structure from phone line services. The costs of such connections are much higher (around $50 to $70 per month) and require the purchase of additional equipment for the buyer such as a cable modem. There are fewer sellers in this market and greater limitations due to the fact that the seller must have access to cable transmission. These entrants become bound to the obstacles of cable television market structure. The top cable operators now account for over 11.25 million broadband Internet subscribers, giving them 65 percent of the high speed Internet market (http//www.nua.ie/surveys/?f=vs&art_id=905358754&rel=true). While this market will assuredly change as the demand for the technology increases, it has a more oligolopolized version of the market structure. For this reason, we will limit our investigation of this variation. Observing this market in the near future should be of some interest because the overall trend in internet service is toward high speed.

The final determinant is the conditions for entrance and exit into this market.

1. Many buyers, sellers and entrants

The indication of the market determinants for Internet Service providers is as follows:

Some topics in this essay:
Census Bureau, Internet Service, Alliance Datacom, Service Provider, Service Providers, FCC FCC, internet service, market structure, internet service providers, service providers, monopolistic competition, entrance exit, sellers entrants, product differentiation, price quality, barriers entry, , 1 buyers sellers, information product price, amount cost information, differentiation 3, cost information product,