A techno-economic evolutionary path for access technologies (presented in European Conference on Networks & Optical Communications NOC’99 Delft, The Netherlands, June 22-24, 1999)

This paper presents a comprehensive techno-economic evaluation of two multimedia cases based on xDSL and HFC technologies, illustrating their respective merits and pitfalls, allowing the definition of a reasonable investment policy. The scenarios considered reflect the point of view of both dominant operators and new entrants. Techno-economic results are presented in terms of costs and revenues from the multimedia services, net present value (NPV), cash flows and pay-back periods. The business cases presented here were studied using the tool developed by European Project ACTS 226/OPTIMUM and ACTS 364/TERA. This study evaluates financial results for different upgrade scenarios trying to provide guidelines for future broadband implementation strategies. The sensitivity of the photonic and xDSL equipment to the total investment is analysed taking into account the present value of them and their cost evolution. The significance of this equipment to the success of a business case is presented and the cost breakdown is discussed.