How to price the unbundled local loop in the transition from copper to fiber access networks?

In many countries worldwide access networks are in the transition from copper to fiber access. During the transition phase copper and fiber networks are operated in parallel. All regulators facing this situation of technological change have to decide how to price unbundled access to the copper loop in this transition phase. Should they keep the usual forward looking long-run incremental cost standard charge, or should they move to some different approach? The authors propose to price copper access based on the modern equivalent asset (MEA) of fiber access. Since fiber access is superior to copper access, the cost of fiber access (as a basis for pricing copper access) should, however, be corrected by the performance delta between copper and fiber access. Instead of using quality of service (QoS) differences, the authors determine the performance delta based on the market valuation of services provided over the copper and fiber access represented by the end-user prices of services and corrected by cost differences downstream of the access provision. Under this approach an access seeker becomes indifferent (on the margin) between using the copper or the fiber access network and wholesale pricing (or regulation) becomes competitively neutral towards technology choice between copper and fiber access and does not distort the platform competition towards cable. To test its practicability numerical simulations of the approach are performed by means of a quantitative competition model. The model analysis suggests that the approach leads to unique and robust results. Its main conclusion is that the method tends to be conservative relative to the theoretical case of pure vertical product differentiation, meaning that the measured performance delta underestimates the theoretical performance delta

Critical market shares for investors and access seekers and competitive models in fibre networks

In this paper we consider and evaluate NGA architectures which meet the foreseeable future bandwidth demand and allow for highest bandwidth and quality for end-users and which no longer rely on copper cable elements. These are FTTH architectures only. From all available FTTH architectures we concentrate on the two most relevant architectures in Europe, Ethernet Point-to-Point and GPON. We assume the incumbent to be the investor in the NGA network infrastructure. If the NGA architecture is based on a Point-to-Point fibre plant we have modelled the competitors as using unbundled fibre loops as the wholesale access service. If the architecture is based on a Point-to-Multipoint fibre plant, we consider an active wholesale access (bitstream access) at the MPoP or at the core network node locations. Our basic modelling relies upon an engineering bottom-up cost modelling approach. We model the total cost of the services considered under efficient conditions, taking into account the cost of all network elements needed to produce these services in the specific architecture deployed. This approach is coherent with a Long Run Incremental Cost approach as applied in regulatory economics. Our modelling approach generates a broad set of results including the relative performance of the various network architectures, investment requirements and the degree of profitable coverage. In this paper, however, we focus on the results on the potential for competition and potential market structures in an NGA environment. --NGA architecture,cost modelling,FTTH,coverage,access models,unbundling

Critical market shares for investors and access seekers and competitive models in fibre networks

In this paper we consider and evaluate NGA architectures which meet the foreseeable future bandwidth demand and allow for highest bandwidth and quality for end-users and which no longer rely on copper cable elements. These are FTTH architectures only. From all available FTTH architectures we concentrate on the two most relevant architectures in Europe, Ethernet Point-to-Point and GPON. We assume the incumbent to be the investor in the NGA network infrastructure. If the NGA architecture is based on a Point-to-Point fibre plant we have modelled the competitors as using unbundled fibre loops as the wholesale access service. If the architecture is based on a Point-to-Multipoint fibre plant, we consider an active wholesale access (bitstream access) at the MPoP or at the core network node locations. Our basic modelling relies upon an engineering bottom-up cost modelling approach. We model the total cost of the services considered under efficient conditions, taking into account the cost of all network elements needed to produce these services in the specific architecture deployed. This approach is coherent with a Long Run Incremental Cost approach as applied in regulatory economics. Our modelling approach generates a broad set of results including the relative performance of the various network architectures, investment requirements and the degree of profitable coverage. In this paper, however, we focus on the results on the potential for competition and potential market structures in an NGA environment

VDSL and G.fast Vectoring and the impact on VULA

VDSL and G.fast Vectoring are transmission technologies over copper access line pairs enabling the transmission of higher bandwidth to the end customers, but harm the infrastructure based competition using physical unbundled copper lines. Thus regulators have to decide between infrastructure based competition of physical unbundling against earlier broadband rollout meeting the DAE goals in time and bandwidth, while pure fibre based broadband networks will require more time and investment for serving whole areas, but then provide higher bandwidth. Thus VDSL and G.fast Vectoring each are an interim solution. This paper highlights the benefits of such solution and the regulatory challenges and options being faced. The Virtual Unbundled Local Access (VULA) is one regulatory tool forming a compromise between the advantages of physical unbundling and the need to early satisfy higher bandwidth supply targets

Typische Konstellationen der Beschäftigung ausländischer Arbeitnehmer. Ergebnisse einer Cluster-Analyse von Betrieben des verarbeitenden Gewerbes

"Im folgenden wird der Versuch gemacht - auf der Basis der Angaben von 1969 Betrieben des verarbeitenden Gewerbes aus dem Jahre 1976 - Arbeitsplätze nach Qualifikationsanforderungen und nach Attraktivität der Arbeitsbedingungen zu strukturieren und zu ermitteln, wo ausländische Arbeitnehmer typischerweise eingesetzt werden. Nach Darstellung der relevanten Hypothesen und des Designs des verwendeten Cluster-Verfahrens (Verwendung eines eigenkonstruierten Ähnlichkeitsindex) werden die Ergebnisse ausführlich geschildert: Es zeigt sich, daß ausländische Arbeitnehmer insbesondere dort eingesetzt werden, wo Großserienfertigung vorherrscht bzw. wo die Fluktuation hoch ist und/oder die Arbeitsbedingungen charakterisiert sind durch viel Schicht-, Akkord- und Prämienlohnarbeit. Bei der Clusterung nach Variablen der Qualifikationsstruktur lassen sich insgesamt 13 Betriebstypen ermitteln, bei der Clusterung nach Variablen der Arbeitsbedingungen insgesamt 11. Eine Gegenüberstellung der Betriebstypisierungen zeigt, daß insbesondere Art der eingesetzten Fertigungsverfahren, Qaulifikationsstruktur, Geschlechter-Split und Nationalität der gewerblich Beschäftigten sowie die Arbeitsbedingungen miteinander in Beziehung stehen. Differenziert man die Fertigungsverfahren nach ihrer Ausbringungsmenge, so läßt sich vereinfachend über die Typen hinweg folgender Bezug herstellen: Einzel-, Klein- und Mittlere Serienfertigung: Gelernte und deutsche Frauen Mittlere und Großserienfertigung: ausländische Frauen Großserien-, Massen- und kontinuierliche Prozeßfertigung: un-, angelernte deutsche und ausländische Männer Massenfertigung durch Halbautomaten (Typ mit viel Frauen): Gelernte und deutsche Frauen."ausländische Arbeitnehmer, verarbeitendes Gewerbe, Qualifikationsanforderungen, Arbeitsbedingungen