Challenges for a broadband service strategy in rural areas: A Romanian case study

Emanuel Puschita, Anca Constantinescu-Dobra, Rebeca Colda, Irina Vermesan, Ancuta Moldovan and Tudor Palade

Telecommunications Policy, 2014, vol. 38, issue 2, 147-156

Abstract: Broadband network deployment plays an important part in the strategic policies in Europe to promote growth and innovation in all sectors of the economy in addition to social and territorial cohesion. In compliance with existing community policies, Romanian strategies in this field seek to provide the necessary support for broadband connectivity in rural areas. The goal of this study is to define a rural end-user profile to plan the most appropriate broadband service strategy from both a technical and a marketing perspective. Our empirical research involves an exploratory survey conducted in rural areas in northwestern Romania (n=1040 respondents). The findings reveal low levels of customer satisfaction and users more interested in data transfer than voice or video applications. Given this rural user profile, simulations of network traffic were conducted. The simulation results suggest that WLANs are the most suitable solution for the “last mile” broadband segment.

Keywords: Service strategy; Broadband network deployment; Broadband target segment; Rural area; Romania (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596113001171
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:telpol:v:38:y:2014:i:2:p:147-156

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/30471/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... /30471/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.telpol.2013.08.001

Access Statistics for this article

Telecommunications Policy is currently edited by Erik Bohlin

More articles in Telecommunications Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().