The Internet and the more sophisticated applications supported by broadband are becoming an increasingly more dominant force in virtually all aspects of economic and social interaction.  Broadband provides Governments and the private sector with opportunities to both improve the delivery of services and reduce the costs.  Broadband facilitates inclusion by helping to overcome geographic and socio-economic barriers. 

Broadband has countless applications in health, education, public services, employment, business, and personal services.  Based on case studies that have been done on individual applications and projects, there are significant benefits that can accrue. One of the more graphic examples in the social sector is the multi-billion dollar impact that broadband could have on the United States through its application in the provision of health care and improving social inclusion. 

A recent study by Robert Litan (2005) addressed the economic benefits of widespread deployment of broadband to individuals over the age of sixty-five and individuals with disabilities in the United States.  There were two types of benefits, cost savings and additional output. These would accrue as the result of lower medical costs, lower costs of institutionalised living, and the additional output generated to the economy by increased labour force participation by these two groups.  

The cost savings arise through the application of telemedicine that enables cost effective two-way and real-time communications between health care providers and patients in the delivery of disease management programs, thereby reducing the costs of medical care.  The ability to remotely monitor patients will greatly reduce the need for institutionalized living and the very high costs associated with it, as patients can be monitored at home or in community health centers. The provision of “True Broadband” across the Municipality will provide the capability for applications that are not really possible via a dial-up modem or over existing broadband offerings and also technology that does not require access to a personal computer.

The expansion of total output will be through the use of broadband for telecommuting that will provide these two groups greater opportunities for remote working, thereby increasing labour force participation and revenue generation.

“Taken together, the estimates imply that under the business as usual scenario, broadband technologies used to benefit seniors and individuals with disabilities can generate between $89 billion and $150 billion in cumulative benefits by 2010, and substantially larger cumulative totals by 2030: $927 billion to $1.34 trillion.” [xxii]

The scale of these benefits when applied to the world as a whole and to other sectors demonstrate the importance of broadband, as an enabler of social well-being and the reasons why communities regard the provision of broadband as an essential service.  This illustration is just one example of the potential of broadband applications to improving the quality and level of services.  It is acknowledged that this example is from a developed country and may not seem that relevant to developing economies, where there is not the same level of existing infrastructure and the main public health issue is not an ageing population.  However, broadband technologies do provide these economies with the opportunity to leapfrog more advanced economies that have legacy infrastructure and legacy approaches to the delivery of services. 

Broadband assists rural and remote communities in both developing and advanced economies to overcome some of the disadvantages associated with low population density and the distance from larger urban centers.  Some of the key broadband applications that focus on improving social conditions and inclusion of individuals are telemedicine, distance learning, teleworking, public safety, and e-government.[xxiii] 

Research on the social and economic impact of broadband on communities is still in its formative stages and there is relatively little work that has been done to address the issue on a comprehensive basis.  One initiative that should help advance an improved understanding of broadband and local access networks is Project Chapleau [xxiv] in Ontario.  In the town of Chapleau, Bell Canada and Nortel have joined together to undertake an 18-month study on the effect of technology and how it stimulates economic, healthcare, education and social activity in the community.  High-speed Internet services will be provided to all residents and businesses over a wireless mesh network and Nortel and Bell Canada will provide technology and other resources to implement and fully evaluate the impact of the project. 

The City of Neunen, Netherlands, with its FTTH LOAN that has a 97% penetration rate is an ideal test bed for advanced applications and it has attracted a number of large corporations like Philips and Rabobank that are interested in testing new applications.

The development of local access networks in many rural and remote communities is designed primarily to provide access to high-speed Internet services with some local Government applications.  In larger communities, the emphasis appears to be on public safety and e-Government with public Internet access as more of a secondary benefit.  The main focus of this Chapter will be on these two major public sector applications, as they are specifically relevant to Local Open Access Networks (LOANs) and the involvement of local Governments in establishing them. 

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