Business Aspects

While we are always looking toward the “next generation,” we were also having to deal with legacy installations and the economic realities of running a business: capital investment, operations and maintenance, maintaining and increasing market share, etc. In particular, there is a well founded concern about “future-proofing” investment in infrastructure.

Installing new telecom infrastructure or upgrading existing networks is very expensive. Large capital expenditures are needed at the start and, just as important in developing a business case, there will be a need for on-going operations and maintenance costs to be considered for the life of the equipment as these can be similar or even higher than the up front capital costs when added up over a long period of time.

There is a natural desire to have some degree of certainty that what is being deployed will serve for a long period of time, and not become obsolete before the investment has been recouped. This is an especially important consideration for developing countries since they have more limited financial resources plus many demands on those resources from other important and worthwhile sectors of their societies.

Where capital is limited, regulators can have a positive effect on the situation through, e.g., permitting infrastructure sharing, wholesaling of network capacity.

Ericsson President and CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg noted at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, February 2009 that “... (telecom) investments can have a direct impact on GDP and ... that for every USD investment in broadband, the economy sees a tenfold return. Today, mobile communication is as essential to any nation’s infrastructure as water, transportation or electricity.”

For more information, click on:

- “Infrastructure Investment in Emerging Markets: the BT Telconsult Infrastructure Consulting Practice” - BT

- “Economic Growth to Come from Telecom Investments” - Carl-Henric Svanberg, CEO, Ericsson

An important aspect in advancing mobile telecommunications business is understanding deployment options and opportunities. ITU-D Question 18-1/2 (a Question is a work topic) studies “Implementation aspects of IMT-2000 and information-sharing on systems beyond IMT-2000 for developing countries.” Question 18-1/2 is part of ITU-D Study Group 2 “Development and management of telecommunication services and networks and ICT applications” and it has also been responsible for delivering:

- ITU Handbook on Deployment of IMT-2000 Systems (joint with ITU-T and ITU-R)

- Guidelines on the smooth transition of existing mobile networks to IMT-2000 for developing countries