Hello
There are of course regions where monopoly has created even higher
prices. But it should be fair to compare the Skåne region of Sweden
directly with the greater Copenhagen area of Denmark, as those are
separated by just a bridge.
In Denmark the government choose to regulate access to the fiber
infrastructure owned by the incumbent operator TDC. The cheapest access
is to "raw fiber" meaning the "alternate operator" gets access to an
uninterrupted stretch of fiber between a POP and the end user. We can
then connect our own equipment in both ends. My company started out by
doing exactly that. We were the first to implement GPON technology on
the TDC owned fiber. TDC was at the time using active ethernet, but have
since started migrating everything to GPON as well. Maybe they got inspired.
The regulated prices are found here:
https://erhvervsstyrelsen.dk/sites/default/files/media/endelig_prisafgoerelse_lraic_fastnet_2019.pdf
Sorry, that document is in danish. Maybe the swedish guys can understand
some of it.
There are multiple prices, but the price we pay for most of our users is
(1584-577)/12 = DKK 83.92 / month (USD 12.76 / EUR 11.24).
As you get access to the fiber itself, nobody will care what speeds or
even what technology you use on that fiber.
It is also possible to rent access to so called "bit stream access". In
this case TDC will provide a VPN connection to the end user and the
operator will just have to provide the IP service. To compare with that
250 Mbit/s swedish offering, we can lookup the price for 250 Mbit/s BSA
service in the DONG area (this means mostly anything near Copenhagen):
(2170-625.7)/12 = DKK 128.69 / month (USD 19.56 / EUR 17.24).
How much do you really need to add on top of that, if all you need to do
is buy that $0.12/Mbps transit from HE.net and let TDC take care of
everything else?
In any case, we are now building out our own fiber to cover the gaps
left by TDC. Here the end user has to pay DKK 12,000 (USD 1,824 / EUR
1,608) one time fee and with that he gets everything including 5 years
of free internet. This works out at DKK 200 / month including 25% VAT
tax (USD 30 / EUR 27).
I guarantee that it is not possible to build at this price without using
PON technology. The network is fully funded by the users themselves and
we have a paid off network after just 5 years.
Regards,
Baldur
