Structural Equation Modeling Applied to Internet Consumption Forecast in Brazil

The growth of Internet services over the past few years has increased the importance of Internet consumption forecasting models in telecommunications network planning activity. Most of these models use historical data of variables that, when reduced in size, form context variables: economic, innovation, technology, and Internet supply. Although they include multiple context variables, the techniques employed in using these models are limited to the analysis of a single dependency relationship. Thus, these models fail to understand the interrelationships between context variables and their effects (direct and indirect) on Internet consumption. This research uses Partial-Least-Square Structural Equations Modeling to understand Internet consumption in Brazil between 2002 and 2017. The results show, for example, that the economic context produces direct effects in the context of innovations and indirect effects in the context of technologies and Internet consumption. These results contribute to increase the knowledge of the relationships between the context variables that influence Internet consumption, providing inputs for the development of more accurate forecasting models, thus contributing to the activity of telecommunications network planning.