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Governments around the world are providing multi‐billion dollar subsidies to roll out fiber to the home (FTTH) to enable superfast broadband (50 Mbps and above). The premise for this is a belief that superfast broadband brings substantial economic and societal benefits. This paper's purpose is to examine whether this belief is well founded.

The authors critically review the arguments most commonly made in favor of FTTH, examining their logic and underlying evidence.

The paper finds that these arguments often inappropriately use benefits of basic broadband to make the case for the upgrade to superfast broadband, or use the benefits of providing superfast to business premises to argue for providing superfast to homes. The authors find the evidence that basic broadband brings economic growth is patchy, and that frequently studies that argue for a link do not adequately distinguish between correlation and causation.

Thus the authors conclude that the conventional wisdom that FTTH will bring substantial economic and societal benefits and therefore deserves a subsidy is, at best, much overstated. The case has simply not been made that FTTH has sufficient incremental externalities over other forms of broadband. This is an important conclusion for politicians, policy makers, telecoms providers and taxpayers, and suggests that billions of dollars of public money may be being wasted.

Based on work by Technology Task Group 1 (TTE‐1) for the IEEE‐USA/Cornell workshop on US telecommunications’ evolution. States the task group’s activity focused on local access Contains discussions on how fibre optics are used today and can be used in the future. Touches also on the technical and non‐technical challenges that a fibre to the home or fibre to the building network may face.

The future scenario presented in this article offers a view of true facilities‐based competition in 2010. By this date, the continued investment in infrastructure development had ensured an increased rate in bandwidth provision and gradual extension of broadband service to the home across the USA, while end point technologies and conduits to the desktop proliferated. This scenario envisions two types of entrants: new forward‐thinking green‐field entrepreneurs and facilities owners who had previously not been involved in the communications provision (eg gas, water, electrical utilities). The main conclusion of the article is a recognition that competition requires open standards and interoperability. Facilities‐based competition requires clearly defined interface points where new competitors can connect customers. In this scenario two physical points of interconnection (at the curb and at the IXC/IAP) are envisioned. A policy prediction which is embedded in the scenario as an enabler of open interconnection is that economic necessity spurs democratic leaders to shorten the extension of copyright, and declare overly broad software patents void. An understated assumption is that political and economic leaders address the conflicts between information as property, as privacy (private information), and as speech (political information) in a timely and balanced manner. Luckily only the provision of interconnection is necessary for the scenario to be feasible. The well‐noted reality that the information industry will not approach its potential until issues of security, reliability and privacy are adequately addressed underlies this scenario. Some battles will remain in 2010: concepts of ownership and autonomy with respect to information adequate to the information revolution are being challenged by the genetics revolution.

The writer of a review article in the IT area depends on a variety of information sources containing authoritative material, hyped‐up reports, or even partial or pure fiction. Sometimes articles are biased or the author has a particular axe to grind — for instance the person is associated with a company and the article is no more than a dressed up sales piece. Academics are usually reliable — although unlikely to damn themselves with faint praise if the next grant is round the corner. I will try to exercise good judgement when assessing my information sources, supressing my various prejudices if possible. But what is meant by the word new? For the purposes of this article ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) protocol (rules) and ATM switches in broadband networks, and aspects of Cable‐TV and cable modems have received a lot of exposure. They will not be discussed here. However, there is much interest in the contest between fibreoptic systems to the home and the conversion of telephone lines to wideband lines. These topics will be discussed.

In recent years, many municipalities have made investments in fiber to the home/building (FTTH/B) infrastructures to enhance the digital future of their local communities. This paper aims to propose a business model for managing these municipal FTTH/B networks. The paper also seeks to form a part of the discussion on the business, social and policy implications of municipal involvement in physical broadband infrastructures.

The paper reviews the international experience in municipal FTTH projects and identifies the best practices. Greece is then used as a case study due to the country's strategic plans to create efficient broadband infrastructures in the periphery of the country. Finally, the municipal business model is examined on three premises: the extent of horizontal integration; the degree of vertical integration; and the appropriate form of ownership.

The passive infrastructure model applied within the model presented has strong potentials to ensure fair and open competition. The proposed business model exhibits substantial benefits for the telecommunications industry, the local communities and the managing company. It could become an effective policy tool for future regulation, broadband universal service framework, socially optimal investments and social inclusion.

The paper contributes to the international debates regarding the adoption of the “highway” model (“open access”) versus “vertical integration” and the suitability of public‐private partnership (PPP) as a method for developing and operating FTTH/B networks. It also contributes to the discussion about the implications of the public sector's involvement in broadband infrastructure development.

Interactive television is something that is becoming quite widely talked about these days. In the United States they are going to have 500 television channels but not all of them will be interactive. I understand that there is one called the fish channel, or fish net, or something like this, and it just consists of fish swimming round in front of your eyes for nearly 24 hours out of 24; so it might be very relaxing but I do not know if you can really interact with them much, unless you just open your mouth in the same way they do. Our speakers are going to talk about interactive television. They are going to tell us what it is exactly. They are going to tell us about the transmission technologies that you are able to use, how you actually interact with the programmes. They are going to talk about who is involved in interactive television, and why, and they are going to talk about potential services that one can have available with these devices. Our very first speaker is going to tell us about what interactive television is — Judith Jeffcoate. She is an independent consultant specialising in new markets for information technology, she was the lead author on a report by Ovum on interactive television multimedia, and she has just written a book on introduction to multimedia technology and applications.

Broadband networks, enabling high‐speed and always‐on Internet connections, are now seen by many to be critical for economic growth and development, both at the national and global level. Much energy has been invested in the deployment of broadband infrastructure around the world, and governments and industry have now begun addressing the demand side of the broadband challenge, i.e. ways in which to encourage take‐up among users. The present article zooms in on one of the leading countries in broadband, Iceland. It examines the main strategies, policies and regulations in place for promoting broadband in a country that has the world’s highest number of Internet users per capita, and posits on the main opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.

This paper aims to provide an answer as to whether fibre to the home and other types of fixed internet access still have a role to play in Africa beyond a few urban elites, as well as what business models are likely to be successful in the African context.

The paper uses data from nationally representative ICT household surveys conducted in 12 African countries in 2012. These data are complemented by an OECD broadband pricing methodology and data. In addition to the OECD basket methodology, own baskets were defined to capture the complexity of African products, and to draw out the different business models for fixed and mobile broadband.

The paper demonstrates that if fixed internet is provided as an uncapped service at an affordable price, it has a chance to at least co-exist with mobile broadband in Africa. The availability of fixed internet is rapidly diminishing where it is offered as a capped service and not at prices similar to mobile broadband. The paper also demonstrates that fixed-line telecommunication companies should to focus on data only before mobile operators do, and they lose out once again.

In Africa, mobile voice overtook fixed voice at the turn of the millennium with the introduction of prepaid services. Ten years later, mobile internet is rapidly overtaking fixed internet by overcoming key obstacles to fixed internet access. While the developed world discusses the merits of fixed and mobile broadband, it is clear that for Africa, fixed broadband in the form of fibre to the home, or even plain ADSL, will only reach a few urban elites in the next decade. Fixed-line operators then should rethink their pricing and investment strategies: they are advised to invest in high-speed technologies such as VDSL or fibre to the home, if fixed broadband is to stand a chance against mobile broadband. Whether fixed-line operators will lose the data battle as well will be determined by their business decisions as well as by policy and regulatory interventions.

This paper uses primary household and individual data that allows for a better understanding of internet access and use in Africa. The analysis of internet access prices for ADSL against prepaid and post-paid mobile broadband is used to assess broadband business strategies across 12 African countries. The paper provides policymakers and regulators with the evidence required for an informed ICT policy and regulation and it recommends business strategies that should be pursued by operators to improve broadband sector performance.

Discusses the telecommunications infrastructure of the USA and issues surrounding its restructuring. Describes the role and impact of broadband Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) in applications development and the societal implications of this change. Points out that global development of broadband technologies makes personal access to multimedia applications possible and promotes new information‐sharing partnerships. Argues for an holistic, ethical approach to future development of ISDN.

The purpose of this paper is to consider circumstances when technological neutrality in fixed broadband (according firms the power to determine technological choices untrammelled by regulation or the operation of specific incentives) should be adopted.

The paper reviews the likely effect of such a policy on the competitive structure of fixed broadband markets, taking four case studies as examples.

The paper finds that choices made by broadband firms with respect to the adoption of fibre to the home versus fibre to the premise, the use of vectoring and the variant of fibre to the home adopted (point to point or point to multipoint) can have a significant effect on the nature of access products which can be provided and thus in the market structure of fixed broadband markets. Access providers can, thus, abridge or foreclose competition in downstream markets. Accordingly, regulators may decide to seek to influence such technological choices to promote competition. But this should be done carefully.

These issues are part of the on-going debate concerning the revision of the European regulatory framework for electronic communications services.