Shedding light on the black hole

Several market studies have indicated that the roll-out of broadband has significant economic and social relevance. The investments in broadband infrastructures needed to realise these economic and social benefits are, however, high-risk. This is firstly caused by the fact that the roll-out of access networks is extremely costly and requires high initial investments. Moreover, the multidisciplinary environment and involvement of many actors with diverging objectives and interests cause high complexity. Moreover, the market for broadband is changing fast and continuously. Although broadband has been on the academic research agenda for quite some time, this has as yet not resulted in a structured insight into the decision-making process around the upgrading of broadband networks, seen from the perspective of private operators and taking into account the vast complexity of the surroundings in which this decision-making process takes place in. The objective of this research was to provide a unifying theory combining technical, economic, market-related and regulatory factors with regard to an evolutionary, flexible approach of network upgrading from a decision-maker perspective. The result of this research is a robust, explanatory, parsimonious model for the impact and outcomes of broadband roll-out. This model provides a certain degree of stability in this multidisciplinary, unpredictable and highly dynamic research field.