PING

The investment by the government in the Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network deployment, as well as the open access obligation in New Zealand contrast sharply with the European condition of Next-Generation Access deployments. It is therefore interesting to compare the Ultra-Fast Broadband network (UFB) in New Zealand with specific European cases, on three domains: technology, policy, and market.

A common aspect of both types of deployment is the alignment of public and private partners’ goals when working together under a partnership, also known as Public-Private-Partnership (PPP). Whereas the public partners (local governments, Crown Fiber Holdings) focus on getting as much from e-services as possible to the public institutions and end-customers, and so reducing the digital divide and increasing economic attractiveness of the high-speed network, private companies want to satisfy their stakeholders by increasing profits through competitive offers. Within this project, two main private partners will be examined: the Local Fiber Companies (LFCs) and the Retail Service Providers (RSPs).

By comparing New Zealand and European deployments, the factors that impact on FTTH deployment and uptake can be identified. For each chosen deployment, those factors combine to result in measurable criteria (such as deployment and speed of uptake), which can be used to indicate the success of the case.

 

This project is a collaboration between the Techno-Economic Research Unit at the University of Ghent, Belgium and the ISOM Department at the Business School of the University of Auckland, New Zealand, during a period of four months (November 2013 till February 2014). The goal of this collaboration is to perform a comparative analysis of the development of FTTH deployments both in New Zealand and a selected group of local European initiatives from which good practices, guidelines and evaluative measurements can be inferred.

 

Detailed description of our project can be found here.