All this discussion around fiber and rural penetration and analyzing costs fails to ask the question, "does the current model work?" Why try to patch up something that is terribly flawed? OpenNet and wholesale/retail models have been discussed but don't get to the heart of "digitization". Over the past 30 years, at least in the US, we've had 3 digital waves in the WAN, data and mobile from which to model a 4th and final wave of broadband digitization.

There seem to be five commercial models in practice to build fast broadband infrastructure
Bottom-up - community led (good for rural projects)
Public Sector - designed and operated
Private Sector - designed and operated
Public Sector - outsourced
Joint Ventures / Public Private Partnerships.

It generally seems that all the commercial models should run on single Open Networks (Open Access) so that competition is introduced at the service layer... but which one is the best?

Blisteringly fast Internet speeds, more robust connections and a big increase in network capacity at little extra cost, even in rural areas?

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/digital-agenda/research/optical_...

This is the future. The question remains, how can Europe facilitate the roll out when the incumbents have such a stranglehold on the politicians?

It seems that the Italian prime minister, Mario Monti, will propose at EU level to mantain out of fiscal compact investments for broadband and digital agenda:

1) do you think this should be limited to non profitable areas (as it is mainly now given State Aids rules) or else it should start a path where public bodies are more involved in setting up wider infrastructures?

2) should these investments then cover digital divide areas or else focus on real NGAN?

Looking forward to hear from you and I hope it will pop up an interesting debate.
Luigi @luigiscorca