DISQUS

Thomas · 9 months ago

Fiber is cheap, ducts are expensive. Therefore, it makes sense to share ducts in most cases but the case for sharing fiber is weaker. This is certainly the case in the so-called vertical outside plant. In buildings, the situation is a bit different where multiple fibers can be difficult to install for each apartment and landlords are often hesitant to let multiple providers install infrastructure (they open the door only once, if at all...)


From a competitive point of view, infrastructure based competition, rather than service based competition, also stimulates innovation. This we know from the DSL world where LLU is gaining ground in favor of bitstream access. Reason being that competition at the lowest possible layers allows more degrees of freedom to differentiate. And also avoids a situation where we actually create a monopoly on the lower layers.



So infrastructure competition is in principle a better choice. But sometimes such competition is not technically feasible (e.g., if there are constraints in ducts or sewers and multiple fiber cannot be installed) or economically feasible (e.g., in some rural areas where the business case for FTTH can be rather weak). This is where bitstream access/wholesale/open networks (whatever you want to call it, it's all the same L2/L3 wholesale offering in the end) makes sense. But don't impose it, if it happens let it be.



Thomas