TONIC's main objectives are:
The success of the project will be measured by the acceptance of scientific articles in major journals and conferences. A less tangible criterion is the degree to which the recommendations derived from project results are taken into account by policymakers and other decision makers.
TONIC will define, in association with co-operating projects, representative sets of services, e.g., teleworker package, entertainment, games and interactive Video, in order to determine the traffic load incurred on the network(s) and to provide a target set of services for demand forecasting studies. The completion of this task will be materialised in Deliverable 2, published 6 months after the project start date.
Following the collection of broadband demand data and tariff information, TONIC will develop demand-forecasting models for mobile and fixed broadband services. These models will take account of factors such as convergence: fixed-mobile, broadcast-communications, and mobile-Internet, as well as seamless service provision across different types of networks. Substitution and stimulation effects will be considered. The impact of competition and tariff levels on demand will also be taken into account. Tariff structures including connection fees and traffic charges will be derived from mobile and broadband tariff structures observed today. Criteria for tariffs include data rate, degree of bit rate symmetry, and quality of service. The completion of this phase will be materialised by the description of the demand and tariff models as well as their basis, in Deliverable 2, published 6 months after the project start date.
TONIC will carry out business cases on mobile 3rd generation network in combination with Wireless LAN technologies in close co-operation with projects like BRAIN (IST-1999-10050);
TONIC will study the economic viability of Mobile Virtual Network Operators in the 3G environment;
TONIC will carry out business cases on broadband access solutions in both competitive and rural or non competitive areas;
TONIC will focus on how to provide broadband access to rural and sparsely populated areas and determine the cost for making broadband access a nation-wide commodity affordable to all citizens.
These business cases will be described in Deliverable 1, published 2 months after the project start date. Quantified initial results will be documented in Deliverables 3, 4, 5, and 6 published at latest 9 months after the project start date. Final results will be described in Deliverables 9, 11, 12, and 13 published at latest 22 months after the project start date.
In order to carry out the significant number of simulations needed to analyse, refine, and finalise the business cases, TONIC will develop a data base containing the relevant costs, and will implement the business models using an adapted software. This software is particularly important for the risk analysis phase. Techno-economic support will be provided to members of TONIC, IST projects and other entities co-operating with TONIC. The completion of this work will be documented in Deliverable 7, published 14 months after the project start date.
To publish techno-economic results, recommendations and guidelines is an important objective for every research project. TONIC will hold a special workshop on the techno-economics of IP-based services and networks. The project will publish the results and workshop proceedings in scientific journals, conferences and on the Internet. The results of this activity will be summarised in Deliverable 10, published 20 months after the project start date.
It is expected that each of the consortium members, members of co-operating projects such as BRAIN, and European telecommunications stakeholders including national regulators, fixed and mobile network operators, service providers, manufacturers, and customer groups will take considerable interest in these findings. Indeed, the original feature of TONIC results is that they are quantitative and fully documented, whereas reports published by consultancies and private concerns generally do not back up their statements with the underlying assumptions. TONIC results are also oriented toward the European market. While they cannot attempt to be applicable directly to each country, they focus on "representative" areas which can generally be found in all European countries. As a result, consortium members can easily adapt the analysis tool to handle their own assumptions.
As techno-economic analysis strives to evaluate the respective merits and pitfalls of several technical and/or service scenarios, it is a particularly valuable tool during R&D and strategy/planning in order to orient the project before it is put on the market. We expect the consortium members to exploit the results and the tool itself to explore various options related to the business cases for their own strategy, and to support their business units seeking enlightenment on the underlying costs of the different technical possibilities.
The business case on broadband service provision to non-competitive areas is more specifically oriented toward the operators responsible for this task and toward national regulators, since it provides a clear idea on the actual cost of such service provision and evokes different means to cover this cost. Operators will undoubtedly re-use the tool to examine deployment scenarios within their national contexts.
In the particular case of the University of Aveiro the results of the project will be selectively disseminated to a variety of actors, such as local and regional authorities, infrastructure providers, network providers, network operators, service providers and application service providers, regulatory bodies (ICP- Instituto de Comunicações de Portugal) and, eventually, business users to whom the network solutions developed by the project might be attractive. The university plans to exploit and use the results in several fields, such as regional and strategic studies where UAVR is currently involved (strategic development plans of several municipalities in Portugal , strategic plans for telecom operators in several African countries, etc.) and to support post graduate studies on techno-economics field.
Expected Impact The main results of TONIC will be presented in the form of pertinent recommendations to policymakers, network operators and service providers regarding communications investment strategies. This will have an impact on how these players in assess the business they are involved in.