Techno-economic analysis of long tailed hybrid fixed-wireless access

Worldwide, there is an enormous digital divide. It is apparent not only between different countries, but also within a country - even the most developed ones! All the more so, in the European Union there is a long tail of households whose access bandwidth is less than 144 kbit/s. Surprisingly, that long tail makes up 44% of all households. More than a third of EU citizens do not have Internet access either. This paper first builds a case for hybrid fixed-wireless access as a possible solution for some of these households, and second, describes a novel modeling tool which could be used to determine when, in what circumstances, such solution would be appropriate.