[CAnet - news] More excellent OECD papers on regulation policy on fiber and right of way issues

For more information on this item please visit my blog at 
http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/ or http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com
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[Thanks to Rudolf van der Berg the author of this paper for these pointers.
An excellent overview of the regulatory and government challenges of
deploying fiber networks to create an open and competitive market.  The fact
that such an august body as the OECD is investigating these issues signifies
the growing recognition by policy makers of the incredible economic impact
that is possible with a truly open competitive fiber to the home
infrastructure.  - BSA]
 

DEVELOPMENTS IN FIBRE TECHNOLOGIES AND INVESTMENT
http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2007doc.nsf/LinkTo/NT00005E06/$FILE/JT03243516
.PDF

PUBLIC RIGHTS OF WAY FOR FIBRE DEPLOYMENT TO THE HOME
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/49/9/40390753.pdf


The OECD has published a paper titled "DEVELOPMENTS IN FIBRE TECHNOLOGIES
AND INVESTMENT". Technically it's an OECD paper and it represents what the
OECD finds important, but I spent two months in Paris (dec 2006-jan2007)
writing it, so emotionally it's my paper. It was really great that my
previous employer assigned me to the OECD for that period. The people at the
Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry - Information and
Communications Policy are great people and I had great fun working with
them. These are the same people who make the infamous OECD Broadband
Statistics, which are every time cause for discussion in the countries that
are ranked low.

The paper examines developments in broadband technology, going from
submarine, wireless, to hybrid (BPL, xDSL and Docsis) and all-fibre networks
like (xPON and Point to Point). (Submarine is included because it both shows
where the technology will go and the difficulties businesses may face) It
describes the relative differences and the effects this has on the way these
networks can be used. In one of the figures it shows the difference between
the bandwidth on a dedicated link (like VDSL) and a shared link (wimax or
Docsis) available to one user and to twenty simultaneous users. The paper is
already a year old, so LTE isn't included. Service-wise it works from the
idea that users need at least 50Mbit/s downstream capacity in order to be
able to freely choose services from a variety of service providers and to be
able to run several services parallel.


It also discusses the business case there are for investment in fibre
networks and the different positions between incumbents and new entrants.
Furthermore there is an evaluation of the possibilities for alternative
financing models. It also shows a financial model based on a model for the
Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. This model developed by Arcadis in the
Netherlands is based on real investments in The Netherlands and therefore is
quite accurate. When applying it to other countries your mileage may vary.
What it does show is that housing density matters as well as penetration.
What is also clear is that there is not much room for multiple providers of
physical infrastructure in the same region.

The last part goes into the roll of the government as a stimulator,
regulator and investor. Some of the things it argues is that first
governments should have an idea of what they want to achieve. Second it
argues should take away any barriers to entry, but also must be aware that
if they stimulate one party that this interferes with competition for
others. So if governments stimulate the roll out of a network, they should
demand that the network that they have stimulated becomes open to others
under equal conditions.

With regards to regulation an important insight is that regulators should
provide regulatory certainty with regards to the success of networks, not
with regards to the competitive services offered over that network. Also
policies should aim at the local exchange of traffic between networks,
thereby relieving backhaul networks of unnescessary traffic.

As an investor governments should be cautious and determine the amount of
market failure. If they do invest it should be limited starting with i and
then if more is necessary moving up to iv.

i) Digging trenches and laying ducts, removing a significant part of the
costs of rolling out a
network.
ii) Providing passive network infrastructure to which network providers can
connect their active
infrastructure.
iii) Providing an active network over which others can provide their
services.
iv) Providing services over the network to end-users.

All in all it was great fun writing this piece. Another paper was also
published called: PUBLIC RIGHTS OF WAY FOR FIBRE DEPLOYMENT TO THE HOME
There is a conference in Stavanger next week that will delve much deeper
into this topic. I will be speaking there too.



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blog: http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com/


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