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

Karl-Heinz Neumann and Ingo Vogelsang

Telecommunications Policy, 2013, vol. 37, issue 10, 893-909

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: Copper access; Fiber to the home (FTTH); Modern equivalent asset; Long-run incremental costs (LRIC); Performance delta (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.telpol.2013.05.011

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