A cost analysis of the transmission backbone

The application of the principle of cost orientation to the tariffs of leased lines makes the cost analysis of services based on the transmission backbone relevant both for the incumbent operator and for the alternative ones. In This work a simple procedure, based on the fully accounted costs criterion, is proposed for deriving the annual cost of the transport of a 2 Mbit/s stream and for analyzing its relation to the distance between the stream endpoints. The procedure is applied to the network of a national alternative operator. The cost-distance relationship appears to be well modelled by a piecewise linear function, showing a near invariance of costs for the longer distances (over 700 km).