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Monthly cost per user connected50€45€40€35€30€25€20€15€If we have an objective of reaching a70% penetration rate of broadbandservices in urban areas, the mostinexpensive way to provide theservice is through WiMAXIf we define affordability price at25 euros,then the maximum levelof penetration with FTTH to makethe deployment financiallyattractive would be 30%Figure 12: Monthly CostsAssociated with DifferentAccess Technologies inUrban AreasSource: IADB/World Bank.Chapter 610€1%11% 21% 31% 41% 51% 61% 71% 81% 91%Population Penetration of the serviceFTTH FTTX HFC WiMAX 5 MbpsFibre deployments can proveprohibitively expensive (seethe estimates in Table 3). Onesolution to such cost barriers isthe voluntary sharing of networkinfrastructure. Network sharing isa widely used deployment strategywhich originally attracted majorinterest when mobile broadbandrevenues became decoupled fromcosts to support the exponentialrise in traffic, and operators had toinstigate new measures to activelyreduce operational expenditures(opex) 6 . Informa (2014) notes thatfor network sharing to work bestin a way that proves beneficialto all parties, all participantsmust have similar market power 7 .Informa forecasts that operatorsin developed markets will exercisepassive-network sharing atbest for their LTE networks. Indeveloping markets or the laterstages in developed markets,Informa suggests that networksharing may prove more suitablefor LTE networks, but suggests thatcompetitive issues could preventnetwork sharing from being ascommon for LTE as it is in 2G or3G networks 8 . There is evidenceto suggest that significant costsavings can be realized in bothcapex and opex through networksharing and infrastructure sharing(Featured Insight 15). FeaturedInsight 16 cites the experience ofChina in developing broadbandinfrastructure and services rapidly.75