Last mile

As a last mile (English: last mile or final mile) is a term used electricity and gas supply as well as telecommunications networks (eg telephone network, cable television, Internet) as well as in the delivery of mail to the last section of the line or to the house connection. leads to the subscriber's home. It is official, especially as part of the traditional telephone network as the local loop (ULL ) refers.

The last mile represents the bottleneck in international communication, because nowadays almost all switching centers with multi-gigabit / s fast fiber optic cables are connected, while the speed of the two-wire copper lines in the last mile strong damping values ​​, distance and -developed technology (eg outdoor DSLAMs ) depends.

The last mile is usually owned by regional, national or international monopoly companies ( so-called incumbent carriers ), the cause can be both a former legal monopoly of state enterprises as well as a natural monopoly by private network operators.

Since all of the network connections - particularly in the area because of there low power density - can be very costly duplicated, ownership change at the last mile at most the longer term.

In order to allow competitors without their own last mile access to the network connections, providers can get to the owner of the last mile access to the power terminals of the incumbents by the unbundling of a fee. The amount of these fees and the terms and conditions of access are an ongoing point of contention in the field of tension around the regulation authorities.