Sep. 19, 2011

From copper to fibre: an optimal regulatory policy

By Denis Basque, Laurent Benzoni and Anh Tuc Nguyen

The role of fibre is very important towards connecting to ultra-fast broadband, one of the key action areas of the Digital Agenda. But, Europe is late in its fibre deployment, especially when compared to other advanced economies such as the United States or Japan. At the same time, however, there is still no standard for a European fibre strategy: public as well as private stakeholders are having very different approaches in local FTTx deployment sometimes leading to a waste in private and public funds and being mainly focused on dense areas.

This article aims to propose an efficient model for fibre network deployment that can be applied to all European Member States. The model provides high-margin incentives for operators to install fibre network across the whole country, while maximising households’ fibre connection rate through an automatic migration scheme. In a period of weak growth and budget restrictions, the catch-up in ultra-fast broadband internet requires more than ever an efficient policy to maximise the deployment of FTTH at the lowest cost possible to the public. The proposed model serves as an ideal choice given this context.

Click here to read the article on the website of the Journal of Regulation. ( Article in French)

Other publications by TERA Consultants in Regulation

Natural monopoly, two-sided markets, price differentiation: three essays on the regulation of telecommunications

Cost analysis of Emergency Call Answering Services - Presentation at EENA conference

Will the universal postal service implode in volume and explode in cost? ( Article in French)

Study on the Impact of Piracy in the EU

TERA Analytics Regulation: What reference costs should be used to regulate access price ? (download the French document)