OECD - Fibre to the home - rights of way

Public rights of way for fibre deployment to the home DSTI/ICCP/CISP(2007)5/FINAL

OECD countries have emphasised the importance of broadband technologies, viewing these technologies as having beneficial economic and social impacts. Fibre network deployment in last mile access networks are viewed as a key technology offering high-speed broadband connections with capacity that is symmetric and can support multiple play services. However, the investment costs for fibre deployment in the last mile are high because of the cost of civil works to construct ducts. The cost, especially for those companies that do not have historical access to rights of way and ducts, is increasing the focus by policy makers and communication regulators on how to reduce these costs. Improved access to rights of way and reduced access costs can be achieved in a number of ways, which include:

• Reducing barriers associated with obtaining authorisation for access to and use of rights of way.
  
• Ensuring clarification of jurisdiction for both granting rights of way and settling disputes and coordination
  among the public authorities involved.
  
• Harmonising administrative procedures for access to rights of way and ensuring consistency in
  the application of these procedures across a country.
  
• Developing a reasonable system of compensation for access to and use of municipal public rights
  of way.
  
• Ensuring that operators investing in ducts are subject to a minimum set of obligations for
  remediation and maintenance.
  
• Encouraging and/or obliging sharing of ducts and other rights of way both by incumbent
  communication companies and by other utilities that have infrastructure.
  
• Examining the role of public-private partnerships in the deployment of dark fibre and/or third
  party infrastructure providers for duct sharing.
  
• Examining the possibility of regulatory measures to facilitate the sharing of inside wiring
  between operators in multi-dwelling units.
  
• Developing policies to construct joint ducts by new entrants.
  

The primary aim of this paper is to examine barriers to rights of way which may slow down the pace of fibre rollout in local access networks, and to suggest the policy options available.