Economic Evaluation of Rural Broadband and Machine-to-Machine Deployments in TV Whitespaces

Abstract:
This paper presents a business case analysis for two scenarios that could be deployed in TV whitespaces: one scenario looks at providing broadband to rural areas, the other looks at providing the infrastructure for a machine-to-machine network. Both business cases would provide a positive net present value over a ten year period using the assumed values for revenue and costs. The risk for both business cases is identified using a sensitivity analysis for some of the key assumed values. The key values for both business cases would be the number of customers and the average revenue per customer. This paper also describes some of the other key issues that must be satisfied before a network operator could consider deploying either of these scenarios.