Exclusion and sources of technological competition in mobile networks

The degree of competition in a market is one of the key determinants of its health and the related need for regulatory remedies. Modern industrial economics and their legal counterpart, antitrust law, have distilled a set of factors to consider when assessing the competitive pressures firms face in the market. However, the economic aspects of competition are not enough to give the full picture of the sources of competitive pressures in technology-intensive industries such as mobile telecommunications. We present here an account of how the technological nature of mobile telecommunications alters our perception of the true competitive conditions actors face in the mobile telecommunications industry. This technological side of competition has remained so far either marginal or presented in an unsystematic way. It is only by considering all aspects of competition - economic and technological - that one can assess the need for regulatory intervention to make up for any perceived lack of competition.