^4fTradeoff between Investments and Operation Costs in Broadband Networks in Low ROI Areas

摘要

^7fThere is a decision of a number of countries to develop Broadband Services as they represent the next technological revolution. However, the high investments especially in the so-called Rural Areas are a challenge. In some countries, like Sweden, the deployment of Broadband networks is considered as an infrastructure and the operator building this network must offer it to all Service Providers so the end users may be able to select any of them. Usually the government supports economically the operators building networks in Rural Areas but even with this support the business cases are not always very positive. It is then necessary to find out methods for making the investments in such a way that the cash flow in the first years can be kept within reasonable limits. One way of reducing the initial construction costs is to decrease the population coverage in the first stages of the FTTH network implementation. The use of Wireless solutions in the uncovered areas can solve the service provisioning questions. The hybrid Cable-Wireless implementation will exist for a time. This approach will increase the operational costs. Here is discussed the economical tradeoff between FTTH network construction and Wireless implementation costs. It is found that a theoretical optimum exists for the FTTH coverage in each stage based in the population density distribution in the territory considered. As it is not possible to obtain a close formula, a numeric model has been developed.