Abstract for: A growth and underinvestment model with application to the deployment of Ultrafast broadband Networks and Services.

This research-in-progress paper seeks to apply the "growth and underinvestment" archetype to the phenomenon of the deployment of Ultrafast Broadband Networks and Services. The aim is to identify high-leverage points of intervention, provide policy recommendations to the hydra-headed, systemic issue of slow/poor Broadband infrastructural deployment, and improve overall performance over time. A comprehensive systems dynamics model of the problem is adapted from John Sterman and particularized to my context, which serves as an experimentation vehicle for policy testing and policy analysis. I use a multiple case study of three Broadband Network Services providers from the Nigerian broadband space in this study that provides the background to the model and the model's ability to reproduce various aspects of historical behavior. The research is at the data collection stage—from the three companies-- with which to calibrate the model and do the simulation runs. This submission intends that the knowledge gained from the feedback from the Work-in-progress session presentation of the conference would assist in ensuring that the work is empirically grounded and subjected to the rigors of scientific evaluation.