Market potential for the future of digital broadband networks

The study was focussed on strategic market-entry-potentials of digital broadband networks in business communication in terms of applications, business functions and sectors. Using postal surveys in combination with interviews the analysis was carried out in 16 selected branches. In over 300 organisational field studies more than 1000 application cases were identified. They have been concentrated to 8 general application types and 3 technology types of communication. Taking into account the distribution of these applications types and the business context in investigated sectors the research team estimated a market potential for the year 2000 between 0,1 Mio users (under unfavourable conditions) and 0,9 Mio users (under favourable conditions). Market potential thus comes up to about 4% of total labour force, corresponding to 10000 to 100000 subscriber lines in the year 2000. That means, that market penetration then will still be, in its entry stage, focussing on applications with highly qualified requirements in technical, sales and functions.