INFRASTRUCTURE TO 2030: TELECOM, LAND TRANSPORT, WATER AND ELECTRICITY - ISBN 92-64-02398-4 © OECD 2006 2. TELECOMS INFRASTRUCTURE TO 2030 Efficiency - reduced holding centres and interim confinement facilities. Improved justice - easier to track decisions, more open justice and more timely. Summary - substitution and secondary effects on other infrastructure costs Although the impacts are not all quantitative - for instance there are qualitative aspects such as the topology of distribution of knowledge workers away from urban centres and from suburban concentration - we attempt to summarise the impacts of that dispersion, and of transport on other infrastructure sectors: Table 2.18. Extremes of changes in infrastructure changes with telecommunications substitutions Infrastructure element First estimate % change increase (+ve) Investment increase or decrease or decrease (-ve) Road transport infrastructure -5 to -10 Air travel (business) infrastructure -5 to -10 Fuel oil - car, air transport Health care Education - or same -5to-10 Justice Electricity supply Gas supply Heating oil Water supply Sanitation 7. Recommendations Regulatory policy should aim to assure there is fair competition in services and technology and a level playing field, so that the dominant players do not act against the common good in protection of sunk costs in infrastructure. Future investments, i.e. for investment in all-IP next generation networks, should be made in the same competitive spirit as that which telecommunications deregulation has followed over the last decade. It does not require the protectionism now being afforded to DSL access networks by the administrations in the United States and Japan, and being attempted in Germany, with refusal of unbundling and shared access to competitors. This technology is just the next development stage in networking. Moreover the premise should also be refused that the incumbents can then tax third party Internet portals, search engines and content providers, on the grounds that better service to