Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
the network roll-out, and it is useful to have a place where they can get<br />
information. The shop could provide information about the progress of the rollout,<br />
as well as on the product-portfolio of the service providers that will <strong>be</strong> active<br />
in this area.<br />
When wholesale fibre access is the main product, it is a good idea to develop some<br />
partnerships with operators and service providers ahead of the build if possible,<br />
<strong>be</strong>cause they will <strong>be</strong> your eventual “customers”. The potential partners should<br />
also <strong>be</strong> used to guide the definition of interfaces and processes – some municipal<br />
fibre projects have failed <strong>be</strong>cause they built overly complex or inappropriate<br />
systems and failed to do business with service providers as a result.<br />
Other fixed costs<br />
Any business will have some fixed costs. In the case of an <strong>FTTH</strong> organisation there<br />
will <strong>be</strong> a substantial fixed element relating to central systems for provisioning new<br />
customers, billing, customer care and so on. This means that, where the potential<br />
num<strong>be</strong>r of customers is low, the disproportionately high level of fixed costs will<br />
make it difficult to make a sensible business case. Conversely, as the num<strong>be</strong>r of<br />
potential customers increases, the fixed central costs <strong>be</strong>come less of an issue.<br />
For a small operator the greatest impact may not <strong>be</strong> the cost of central systems<br />
but the cost of employees. Network organisations with fewer than five people are<br />
rare, although it is possible to operate in such a way. For most organisations the<br />
salary costs of staff imply a minimum viable network size.<br />
If you are going to rent out the network to one or more established service<br />
providers that will do marketing, billing and customer care for you, then you must<br />
allow a suitable margin for them to cover these costs. However, established<br />
service providers are not generally interested in small special cases <strong>be</strong>cause it is<br />
more cost effective for them to go after the mass market. This is a real world<br />
disadvantage of small scale.<br />
47 www.ftthcouncil.eu
Change language