Economic Analysis of Broadband Access for Australian Rural and Remote Areas

Abstract

We model and compare the deployment costs of three broadband access technologies, namely digital subscriber loops (DSL), passive optical networks (PON), and WiMAX wireless access, in Australian rural and remote areas. The analysis shows that wireless technologies are cheapest for a 20 Mbit/s rate when the number of homes per square kilometer is less than one. For 50+ Mbit/s, passive optical networks are the most economic.