Deployment costs of rural broadband technologies

摘要

The penetration of broadband services in rural areas is constrained by the cost of network deployment.nDeployment costs are higher than in urban areas due to the lower population density. In this paper , wenexamine the deployment costs of three broadband access technologies; passive optical network (PON),nfibre-to-the-node, digital subscriber line (FTTN DSL) and broadband wireless (WiMAX). We show that accessntechnologies with a range of 60 km can reach most rural customers (99% in Victoria). We have demonstratednthat long-range PON can provide error free service at this range.nBased on a number of assumptions, we have calculated the deployment cost of optimised networks forneach technology for a range of rural areas in Victoria. A geographic information system was used tonidentify actual household locations and distances along roads. The deployment of optical fibre is the largestnsingle cost component for both PON and FTTN DSL (and is significant for wireless) because the broadbandnaccess networks must be node based to span the distances needed. Consequently, the cost differencesnbetween the alternative technologies are not as great as might be expected.nFor broadband services with access rates around 20 Mbit/s without contention, FTTN DSL offers the lowestndeployment cost for most rural households. For 50 Mbit/s and above, PON offers the lowest deploymentncosts for rural households.