IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/telpol/v46y2022i1s0308596121001312.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Explaining cost escalation on Ireland's national broadband plan: A path dependency perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Healy, Gary
  • Palcic, Dónal
  • Reeves, Eoin

Abstract

Ireland's national broadband plan (NBP), announced in 2012, aimed to provide access to a minimum of 30 Mbps download speed to all households in the country ahead of the EU's Digital Agenda for Europe 2020 target for such speeds. The projected cost of the government subsidy was originally €175 million. However, when the contract for the procurement of the NBP was eventually signed in 2019 the estimated subsidy had risen to between €2.2 and €2.9 billion. Using a path dependency framework, this paper finds that the escalation in the cost of subsidy was driven by two main factors. First, the decision to roll out fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) technology was inconsistent with the geographic/legacy path dependencies related to Ireland's low-density rural population. Second, the gap-funding/PPP procurement model adopted for the intervention failed to attract competitive bids and was at odds with the competitive path dependency and the dominant role of the incumbent operator.

Suggested Citation

  • Healy, Gary & Palcic, Dónal & Reeves, Eoin, 2022. "Explaining cost escalation on Ireland's national broadband plan: A path dependency perspective," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(1).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:telpol:v:46:y:2022:i:1:s0308596121001312
    DOI: 10.1016/j.telpol.2021.102227
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596121001312
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.telpol.2021.102227?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. Palcic, Dónal & Reeves, Eoin, 2013. "Private equity leveraged buyouts in European telecoms: The case of Eircom," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 573-582.
    2. Briglauer, Wolfgang & Cambini, Carlo & Grajek, Michał, 2018. "Speeding up the internet: Regulation and investment in the European fiber optic infrastructure," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 613-652.
    3. David, Paul A, 1985. "Clio and the Economics of QWERTY," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 332-337, May.
    4. William Barnes & Myles Gartland & Martin Stack, 2004. "Old Habits Die Hard:Path Dependency and Behavioral Lock-in," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2), pages 371-377, June.
    5. Briglauer, Wolfgang & Stocker, Volker & Whalley, Jason, 2020. "Public policy targets in EU broadband markets: The role of technological neutrality," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(5).
    6. Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 2006. "Path dependence and regional economic evolution," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(4), pages 395-437, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Kirsi Kotilainen & Pami Aalto & Jussi Valta & Antti Rautiainen & Matti Kojo & Benjamin K. Sovacool, 2019. "From path dependence to policy mixes for Nordic electric mobility: Lessons for accelerating future transport transitions," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 52(4), pages 573-600, December.
    2. Yunyao Li & Yanji Ma, 2022. "Research on Industrial Innovation Efficiency and the Influencing Factors of the Old Industrial Base Based on the Lock-In Effect, a Case Study of Jilin Province, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-23, October.
    3. Rosina Moreno & Ernest Miguélez, 2012. "A Relational Approach To The Geography Of Innovation: A Typology Of Regions," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 492-516, July.
    4. Wolfgang Briglauer & Michał Grajek, 2021. "Effectiveness and efficiency of state aid for new broadband networks: Evidence from OECD member states," ESMT Research Working Papers ESMT-21-01, ESMT European School of Management and Technology.
    5. Brachert, Matthias (Ed.) & Henn, Sebastian (Ed.), 2012. "Cluster in Mitteldeutschland - Strukturen, Potenziale, Förderung. Tagungsband," IWH-Sonderhefte 5/2012, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    6. Martin, Ron & Sunley, Peter, 2012. "Forms of emergence and the evolution of economic landscapes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 338-351.
    7. Mauricio Oyarzo & Gianni Romani & Miguel Atienza & Marcelo Lufin, 2015. "Spatio-temporal persistence of municipal rates of business start-ups in Chile," Documentos de Trabajo en Economia y Ciencia Regional 61, Universidad Catolica del Norte, Chile, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2015.
    8. Chatzistamoulou, Nikos & Kounetas, Kostas & Tsekouras, Kostas, 2022. "Technological hierarchies and learning: Spillovers, complexity, relatedness, and the moderating role of absorptive capacity," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    9. Wolfgang Onyeali & Michael P. Schlaile & Bastian Winkler, 2023. "Navigating the Biocosmos: Cornerstones of a Bioeconomic Utopia," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-32, June.
    10. Clara Turner & Marco R Di Tommaso & Chiara Pollio & Karen Chapple, 2020. "Who will win the electric vehicle race? The role of place-based assets and policy," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 35(4), pages 337-362, June.
    11. Francisco J. Santos-Arteaga & Debora Di Caprio & Madjid Tavana & Aidan O'Connor, 2017. "Formalising The Demand For Technological Innovations: Rational Herds, Market Frictions And Network Effects," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 21(02), pages 1-43, February.
    12. Roberta Capello & Camilla Lenzi, 2018. "The dynamics of regional learning paradigms and trajectories," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 727-748, September.
    13. Zhiqiang Gong & Zhuting Zhang & Jianqin Zhou & Jiami Zhou & Wenhui Wang, 2022. "The Evolutionary Process and Mechanism of Cultural Landscapes: An Integrated Perspective of Landscape Ecology and Evolutionary Economic Geography," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-18, November.
    14. Joan Crespo, 2021. "Agencies, scales and times of path creation: The case of IoT in Toulouse," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(5), pages 1527-1545, October.
    15. Modrego, Félix & Berdegué, Julio A., 2015. "A Large-Scale Mapping of Territorial Development Dynamics in Latin America," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 11-31.
    16. Moodysson , Jerker & Sack , Lionel, 2014. "Explaining Cluster Evolution from an Institutional Point of View: Evidence from a French Beverage Cluster," Papers in Innovation Studies 2014/23, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    17. Federico Pablo-Martí & Ángel Alañón-Pardo & Angel Sánchez, 2021. "Complex networks to understand the past: the case of roads in Bourbon Spain," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 15(3), pages 477-534, September.
    18. Jan Ole Rypestøl, 2017. "Regional industrial path development: The role of new entrepreneurial firms," Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 1-19, December.
    19. Uwe Cantner & Simone Vannuccini, 2017. "Innovation and lock-in," Chapters, in: Harald Bathelt & Patrick Cohendet & Sebastian Henn & Laurent Simon (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Innovation and Knowledge Creation, chapter 11, pages 165-181, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Frank Neffke & Martin Henning, 2011. "Entrepreneurship Diversification, Skill Relatedness and Regional Economic Evolution," ERSA conference papers ersa10p937, European Regional Science Association.

    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:1:s0308596121001312. 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.