In a liberalized telecommunications market universal service is considered to be essential for social life of each member of society. However, to avoid discrimination the universal service provider has to be compensated for universal service costs. Instead of calculating universal service costs...

The paper describes the process of introduction of the European paging standard ERMES (European Radio Messaging System) in Germany. It briefly discusses technical features and market conditions. The main focus of the paper is on the design of an appropriate auction mechanism for licences and...