Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) play a fundamental role in enabling complete development and realizing the benefits of the digital economy. Digital technologies are shortening the distances between individuals and the resources that can reshape our daily lives. By connecting people, regardless of their location, these technologies unlock a myriad of possibilities for interactions, offering numerous opportunities and benefits. These include cost reduction in services, increased efficiency through automation and streamlined operations, data-driven decision-making, learning opportunities, professional development, access to real-time information, financial inclusion, environmental awareness, agile business models, improved communication, and easier market access for businesses, among other advantages.
Hence, ensuring widespread connectivity throughout society is crucial, bridging the existing gaps that hinder people from tapping into the transformative potential of the digital realm. To achieve this goal, there's a constant need to explore solutions that can furnish society with ubiquitous connectivity. This involves establishing the necessary telecommunication infrastructure to cater to diverse connectivity needs, ensuring geographical coverage, affordability, and the ability to deliver high-speed connections.
One of the policy measure, which has helped in reducing the prices of telecom services, is the sharing of Infrastructure.
Recommendation ITU-T D.264 proposes a set of possible methods to help telecommunication providers save costs and enhance efficiency through the shared uses of the telecommunication infrastructure, including passive and active infrastructure sharing. The Recommendation indicates that there is a potential savings up to 30% with Passive infrastructure sharing and up to 50-60% for Active infrastructure sharing.
Recognizing this, the scope of work of the
Focus Group on Costing Models for Affordable Data Services is studying infrastructure sharing for mobile data services to optimize network costs, allowing the provision of more affordable services as well as enhancing environmental sustainability and reducing visual pollution in cities.
The
first episode of this webinar series focused on
Infrastructure sharing best practices for affordable data services and took place on
7 February 2024 from 14h00 to 15h00 CET.
Infrastructure sharing for mobile data services (both passive and active) describes the process by which one or more operators share infrastructure to deliver a mobile service to end users. By passive sharing we mean sharing of the passive elements of network infrastructure (mast, sites, cabinet, power, conditioning), and by active sharing we mean sharing of active elements in the radio access network (e.g. antenna, radio network controller (RNC)).
Objectives:
- Provide an overview of the best practices around infrastructure sharing arrangements for mobile data services based; on examples from different countries;
- Discuss the balance between incentivising efficient infrastructure investment without compromising competition with suggestions for recommendations that could considered for the Focus Group work in this area.
Target audience: Telecom regulators, mobile network operators, industry associations, cost model experts, policymakers, Internet Exchange Point operators and Internet service providers
Panelists:
