The milestone of one billion people with access to the Internet was reached in late 2005 according to the firm eMarketer. Nearly a quarter of these had broadband access, enabling them to surf the Internet, download large quantities of data and engage in interactive sessions over the Internet. That implies that over 5.5 billion people still do not have access to the Internet. Governments and national regulatory authorities (NRAs) round the world are attempting to mitigate the ‘Digital Divide’ that has developed between those businesses and consumers that have access to the Internet, and those that do not. These actions are focusing around the rollout of broadband services. Narrowband dial-up is no longer sufficient to provide access to the enormous volume of rich multimedia content that is now available on the Internet.

Government incentives, regulatory intervention and/or competition are required to stimulate broadband rollout. In most countries the incumbent owns the access network, or ‘local loop’, that connects the customer premises (home or office) to the public telephone network. There is limited competition in access infrastructure available from cable operators, and as yet very little from wireless and satellite service providers. Hence, any other service provider that wants to provide broadband access is obliged to rent a wholesale broadband access service from the local loop infrastructure owner, usually the incumbent.

Table of contents

Key messages

What is wholesale broadband?

Figure 1 Bandwidth requirements of current and future applications
Differing wholesale models
Figure 2 Wholesale broadband options
Figure 3 Different wholesale broadband options
Figure 4 Local Loop Unbundling variants
Other options available to competitive carriers
The access owner’s point of view
Critical issues for fixed broadband wholesalers

Opening up other broadband networks
Operational separation of access services
Broadband as the Trojan Horse
Next-generation broadband networks
Systems requirements
Service differentiation
Opportunities for second-level wholesalers
Geographic summary

Europe, Middle East and Africa
Americas
Asia-Pacific