DEFINITION OF ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY OF ICT INFRASTRUCTURE CO-DEPLOYMENT WITH ROAD TRANSPORT AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE

Abstract

As more of the world becomes digital, broadband access becomes more important than ever, including in rural and remote areas. National programmes to develop the information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and reduce the digital divide are recognized as essential to the achievement of national socioeconomic development plans. However, for telecom operators, laying fibre-optic cables in sparsely populated regions is not always economically viable, and the existing telephone network in many regions is not adapted to provide broadband access to the Internet. The economic cost and resources used to deploy the ICT infrastructure could be optimized through co-deployment, which is defined as the concomitant deployment of ducts and/or fibre-optic cables during the construction of infrastructure such as new roads, highways, railways, power transmission lines and oil/gas pipelines. At the same time, the issues of assessing the economic efficiency of the co-deployment of telecommunications with other infrastructure services within the framework of one project remain insufficiently resolved. The aim of the work is formation of a method of an estimation of efficiency co-deployment with road transport and energy infrastructure. The article is comprised of the following components: overview of methodology for determining the compatibility potential of ICT infrastructure co-deployment with road transport and energy infrastructure; a parametric model of ICT infrastructure co-deployment with road transport and energy infrastructure; methodology for assessing the economic efficiency of ICT infrastructure co-deployment with road transport and energy infrastructure. The subject of the research is the process of ICT infrastructure co- deployment with road transport and energy infrastructure. The scientific novelty of the work consists in the development of methodology that is based on the principle of comparing an indicator of the speed of a specific increment in value for cases of co-deployment and separate deployment of the corresponding infrastructures.