Determining Optimal Fibre-optic Network Architecture using Bandwidth Forecast, Competitve Market, and Infrastructure-efficienct Models used to Study Last Mile Economics

The study focuses on building a financial model for a telecommunications carrier to guide it towards profitable network investments. The model shows optimal access-network topography by comparing two broadband delivery techniques over fibre technology. The study is a scenario exploration of how a large telecommunication company deploying fibre will see its investment pay off in a Canadian residential market where cable operators are using competing technology serving the same bandwidth hungry consumers. The comparison is made at the last mile by studying how household densities, bandwidth demand, competition, geographic and deployment considerations affect the economics of fibre technology investment. Case comparisons are made using custom models that extend market forecasts to estimate future bandwidth demand. Market uptake is forecasted using sigmoid curves in an environment where competing and older technologies exist. Sensitivity analyses are performed on each fibre technology to assess venture profitability under different scenarios.MAS