030: TELECOM, LAND TRANSPORT, WATER AND ELECTRICITY - ISBN 92-64-02398-4 © OECD 2006 2. TELECOMS INFRASTRUCTURE TO 2030 Table 2.14. Infrastructure costs for UMTS 3G mobile cellular Cost budgets of a 3G mobile network covering 95% of an OECD economy's population, excluding licence costs launch Customers 000s 1 000 2 000 3 000 4 000 5 000 6 000 7 000 8 000 9 000 10 000 Calls per subscr per month Calls per year millions 3 000 5 400 6 600 7 800 9 000 10 200 11 400 Infrastructure USD m 6 000 Capitalised Opex USD m 3 000 Opex USD m 2 000 2 000 2 000 2 000 2 000 2 000 2 000 2 000 2 000 2 000 Cumulative calls Millions 5 400 9 600 15 000 21 600 29400 38 400 48 600 60 000 Cumulative Capex USD m 9 000 9 200 9 500 9 600 9 700 9 900 10 000 Cumulative Opex USD m 2 000 4 000 6 000 8 000 10 000 12 000 14000 16 000 18 000 20 000 Cumulative cost USD m 9 000 11100 13 200 15 300 17 400 19 500 21 600 23 700 25 800 27 900 Capex per call USD 15.17 Opex per call USD Total cost per call USD 18.50 Total cost USD per subscr/year 11100 4 400 2 550 1 029 Source: SCF Associates Ltd, estimates from industry sources. technologies for radio-based services to arrive from Korea and Japan as well as China. For instance Korea has formulated and is installing a low-speed version of its wireless broadband, WiBro for 1 Mbps broadband. New infrastructure models for new investment returns The nature of infrastructure investment is changing to a new infrastructure model for the long term, using lower cost technologies for broadband access and offering far more than narrowband voice (and SMS) services. Perhaps surprisingly, the way forward is being adopted equally by the incumbent traditional telco operators as much as by their rivals from the Internet world who grew up with IP packet routing. The common direction is a data communications model - even though VoIP breaks incumbents' hold over the local loop. In the OECD countries, VoIP may reduce market power progressively. There are more advanced exceptions such as France where already IP voice operators s