Identifying and quantifying the indirect benefits of broadband networks: A bottom-up approach

Although the phenomenon of the internet only emerged about 25 years ago, it is hard to imagine life without it. More and more people use the available connectivity for both professional and private life, and the number of services grows continuously. This increasing demand for capacity and speed should be answered by upgrading the current access networks. However, the income from customer's subscriptions is insufficient to cover the high investments needed for these upgrades. These revenue calculations should therefore be extended with the value that other advantages of a fast and reliable internet connection can entail: indirect benefits, like savings on travel, less waiting time by introducing an e-counter, or reducing traffic jams by allowing employees to work at home. This paper describes a bottom-up quantification model of the indirect benefits of two sectors: eGovernment and eBusiness, and applies this model to two cities: Ghent (Belgium) and Eindhoven (the Netherlands). The results are summed per actor (authority, large company etc.), so that they can be used in decision-making processes to improve the business case for new investments in fiber networks. Finally, the results obtained in this paper are compared to the results of earlier studies, both bottom-up and top-down.