Authors:
Tom Evens
;
Lynn De Vlieger
;
Elke Boudry
;
Pieter Verdegem
;
Lieven De Marez
;
Erik Vanhauwaert
;
Koen Casier
;
Jan Van Ooteghem
;
Sofie Verbrugge
and
Bart Lannoo
Affiliation:
Ghent University, Belgium
Keyword(s):
Fibre to the home, Value-added services, Bandwidth requirements, Expert study, Nielsen’s Law.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Applications
;
e-Business
;
Education/Learning
;
Enterprise Information Systems
;
Entertainment
;
Health Care/Well-Being
;
Industrial
;
Urban/Regional Planning/Development
Abstract:
Currently, telecom operators are developing large-scale projects in the internet broadband sector in cooperation with utility companies and public institutions. The roll-out of fibre to the home network infrastructure is often justified by the supposed increasing user demand for high-bandwidth applications. Starting from a user-oriented perspective, however, it is important to consider the utility of fibre networks for future users and to explore those killer applications that can convince end-users to migrate from their current connections to high-bandwidth networks. By means of an international expert survey, this paper tries to identify value-added services that benefit from fibre’s network potential in terms of high speed, symmetry and low delay. In contrast to initial expectations, video delivery applications were found less convincing by the experts whereas health monitoring, online content storage and management services, and desktop sharing were identified as the most promisi
ng fibre applications. In terms of timing, content storage and management systems and desktop sharing are identified as more market-ready than health monitoring applications. Whereas the health monitoring and desktop sharing are mainly seen as a service only for the consumer and business market respectively, content management systems are considered useful for business as well as for consumer purposes.
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