IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/telpol/v46y2022i5s0308596121001968.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Municipal fiber in the United States: A financial assessment

Author

Listed:
  • Yoo, Christopher S.
  • Lambert, Jesse
  • Pfenninger, Timothy P.

Abstract

Despite growing interest in broadband provided by municipally owned and operated fiber-to-the-home networks, the academic literature has yet to undertake a systematic assessment of these projects' financial performance. To fill this gap, we utilize municipalities' official reports to offer an empirical evaluation of the financial performance of every municipal fiber project in the U.S. operating in 2010 through 2019. An analysis of the actual performance of the resulting fifteen-project panel dataset reveals that none of the projects generated sufficient nominal cash flow in the short run to maintain solvency without infusions of additional cash from outside sources or debt relief. Similarly, 87% have not actually generated sufficient nominal cash flow to put them on track to achieve long-run solvency. In addition, 73% generated negative nominal cash flow over the past three fiscal years, leaving them poorly positioned to make up their deficits and causing them to fall farther into debt. An assessment based on the net present value of these projects' operating cash flow indicates that 53% of projects would not be on track to breakeven even assuming the theoretical best-case performance in terms of capital expenditures and debt service. Close analysis of these projects’ performance reveals that revenue generation likely plays a more important role in generating cash flow than efficiency in construction costs or operating efficiency.

Suggested Citation

  • Yoo, Christopher S. & Lambert, Jesse & Pfenninger, Timothy P., 2022. "Municipal fiber in the United States: A financial assessment," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(5).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:telpol:v:46:y:2022:i:5:s0308596121001968
    DOI: 10.1016/j.telpol.2021.102292
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596121001968
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.telpol.2021.102292?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Beaver, Wh, 1966. "Financial Ratios As Predictors Of Failure - Reply," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4, pages 123-127.
    2. Beaver, Wh, 1966. "Financial Ratios As Predictors Of Failure," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4, pages 71-111.
    3. Ford, George S. & Alan Seals, R., 2021. "The rewards of municipal broadband: An econometric analysis of the labor market," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(8).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Oughton, Edward J. & Amaglobeli, David & Moszoro, Marian, 2023. "What would it cost to connect the unconnected? Estimating global universal broadband infrastructure investment," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(10).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Antonio Davila & George Foster & Xiaobin He & Carlos Shimizu, 2015. "The rise and fall of startups: Creation and destruction of revenue and jobs by young companies," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 40(1), pages 6-35, February.
    2. Li, Chunyu & Lou, Chenxin & Luo, Dan & Xing, Kai, 2021. "Chinese corporate distress prediction using LASSO: The role of earnings management," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Pavol Durana & Lucia Michalkova & Andrej Privara & Josef Marousek & Milos Tumpach, 2021. "Does the life cycle affect earnings management and bankruptcy?," Oeconomia Copernicana, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 12(2), pages 425-461, June.
    4. Zhou, Fanyin & Fu, Lijun & Li, Zhiyong & Xu, Jiawei, 2022. "The recurrence of financial distress: A survival analysis," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 1100-1115.
    5. Modina, Michele & Pietrovito, Filomena & Gallucci, Carmen & Formisano, Vincenzo, 2023. "Predicting SMEs’ default risk: Evidence from bank-firm relationship data," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 254-268.
    6. Poledrini Simone & Montrone Alessandro & Searing Elizabeth A. M., 2022. "A Model for Directing and Modulating Public Interventions in Social Enterprises," Nonprofit Policy Forum, De Gruyter, vol. 13(4), pages 307-332, October.
    7. Jie Sun & Jie Li & Hamido Fujita & Wenguo Ai, 2023. "Multiclass financial distress prediction based on one‐versus‐one decomposition integrated with improved decision‐directed acyclic graph," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(5), pages 1167-1186, August.
    8. Guido Max Mantovani & Gregory Gadzinski, 2022. "How to Rate the Financial Performance of Private Companies? A Tailored Integrated Rating Methodology Applied to North-Eastern Italian Districts," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-18, October.
    9. Saara Tamminen, 2017. "Regional effects or none? Firms' profitability during the Great Recession in Finland," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 96(1), pages 33-59, March.
    10. Enrico Supino & Nicola Piras, 2022. "Le performance dei modelli di credit scoring in contesti di forte instabilit? macroeconomica: il ruolo delle Reti Neurali Artificiali," MANAGEMENT CONTROL, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2022(2), pages 41-61.
    11. Adriana Csikosova & Maria Janoskova & Katarina Culkova, 2020. "Application of Discriminant Analysis for Avoiding the Risk of Quarry Operation Failure," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-14, September.
    12. Haoming Wang & Xiangdong Liu, 2021. "Undersampling bankruptcy prediction: Taiwan bankruptcy data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(7), pages 1-17, July.
    13. Trueck, Stefan & Rachev, Svetlozar T., 2008. "Rating Based Modeling of Credit Risk," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 1, number 9780123736833.
    14. E. Fedorova A. & M. Chukhlantseva A. & D. Chekrizov V. & ЕЛЕНА Федорова АНАТОЛЬЕВНА & МАРИЯ Чухланцева АЛЕКСАНДРОВНА & ДМИТРИЙ Чекризов ВАСИЛЬЕВИЧ, 2017. "Нормативные значения коэффициентов финансовой устойчивости: особенности видов экономической деятельности // Normative Values of Financial Stability Ratios: Industry-Specific Features," Управленческие науки // Management Science, ФГОБУВО Финансовый университет при Правительстве Российской Федерации // Financial University under The Government of Russian Federation, vol. 7(2), pages 44-55.
    15. Eling, Martin & Jia, Ruo, 2018. "Business failure, efficiency, and volatility: Evidence from the European insurance industry," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 58-76.
    16. Le, Hong Hanh & Viviani, Jean-Laurent, 2018. "Predicting bank failure: An improvement by implementing a machine-learning approach to classical financial ratios," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 16-25.
    17. Ahsan Habib & Mabel D' Costa & Hedy Jiaying Huang & Md. Borhan Uddin Bhuiyan & Li Sun, 2020. "Determinants and consequences of financial distress: review of the empirical literature," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(S1), pages 1023-1075, April.
    18. Serrano-Cinca, Carlos & Gutiérrez-Nieto, Begoña & Bernate-Valbuena, Martha, 2019. "The use of accounting anomalies indicators to predict business failure," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 353-375.
    19. Miquel-Flores, Ixart & Reghezza, Alessio & Buchetti, Bruno & Perdichizzi, Salvatore, 2024. "Greening the economy: how public-guaranteed loans influence firm-level resource allocation," Working Paper Series 2916, European Central Bank.
    20. Deshani C. Hettiarachchi, 2023. "Effects of Non-Financial Performance Management and Risk Disclosures on Not-For-Profit Financial Vulnerability: Evidence from The Australian Aged Care Not-For-Profit Sector," Journal of Accounting and Management Information Systems, Faculty of Accounting and Management Information Systems, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, vol. 22(4), pages 723-745, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:telpol:v:46:y:2022:i:5:s0308596121001968. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/30471/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.