Many carriers in the world are today investing in high bit rate broadband infrastructure or are planning to do so. In parallel, many governments in North-America, Asia and Europe have initiated ambitious broadband deployment strategies. Against this backdrop WIK is organizing an International Conference to analyse the different strategic elements of these approaches. The Conference continues... [read more]

Many carriers in the world are today investing in high bit rate broadband infrastructure or are planning to do so. In parallel, many governments in North-America, Asia and Europe have initiated ambitious broadband deployment strategies. Against this backdrop WIK is organizing an International Conference to analyse the different strategic elements of these approaches. The Conference continues WIK’s previous successful events in March 2007 and in March 2009 where the focus was specifically on VDSL and FTTB/H deployments, respectively. The high-level experts on politics, economy, regulation/competition policy and science from around the globe at the 2010 Conference aim at addressing important issues such as:

* What are the key objectives, elements and instruments of the different national broadband strategies?

* What is the actual role of the state across the different national broadband strategies?

* What are the key elements of public and PPP-operator models?

* What role can "universal service obligations" play to reach national broadband coverage objectives?

* Which options are there to secure "openness" of high bit rate broadband infrastructures? What role does "separation" play in this context?

* What do we really know about costs and benefits of a (near) ubiquitous national high bit rate broadband infrastructure?