There has been a concerted effort in recent years to undertake more strategic, long-term, and cross-sector assessment of national infrastructure. This paper reflects on the assessment of fixed broadband within the recent National Needs Assessment, which aims to identify options for meeting the UK's infrastructure u2018needs' up to 2050. It establishes the future u2018need' for different levels of fixed broadband connectivity and how much investment is required to rollout infrastructure to meet different regional coverage and capacity levels. Two key technologies are initially assessed here using a cost modelling approach, including Fibre-To-The-Premises (FTTP) utilising a Gigabit Passive Optical Network and FTTP utilising a Point-To-Point fibre connection. The results show the aggregate investment required to deliver different levels of fixed broadband access to different proportions of the population. The costs raise linearly for delivery to premises in urban areas, with total urban coverage by FTTP using a Gigabit Passive Optical Network costing ua314.1 billion and FTTP using a Point-To-Point network costing ua317 billion. The costs for rural and remote areas begin to rise sharply, to the extent that deployment of these technologies to the final third of premises could cost almost the same amount as deployment to the first two thirds of premises in urban areas. Deployment to rural and remote areas was estimated to cost ua313.7 billion for FTTP using a Gigabit Passive Optical Network and ua315.8 billion for FTTP using a Point-To-Point network. Total FTTP coverage using a Gigabit Passive Optical Network costs ua327.7 billion, whereas FTTP coverage using a Point-To-Point network costs ua332.8 billion. The largest aggregate investment is required in the South East, North West and East of England, due to their large population sizes. Across these technologies the lowest average marginal cost per premises was in London for urban areas, Scotland for rural areas, and Wales for remote areas.
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