Currently, U.S. and EU telecommunications policies differ in many respects. For example, wholesale access to local loops is largely deregulated in the U.S. but continues to be regulated in the EU. Or, the U.S. has an elaborate universal service policy with a set of universal service funds and...

As the information age progresses, the need for cheap, easy Internet access increases if we want citizens to be able to participate in the global economy. In both the United States and the European Union, cities have taken the lead in attempting to provide Internet access via wireless Internet...

This paper provides an overview of telecommunications regulation in the U.S. and in Europe. For each region the history of telecommunications regulations as well as the current regulatory regime is portrayed. The focus of this overview is on the question of how unbundling regulations in the...

This article, written for the inaugural issue of a new journal, analyzes the extent to which the convergence of broadcasting and telephony induced by the digitization of communications technologies is forcing policymakers to rethink their basic approach to regulating these industries. Now that...

The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) initiative, which is set to introduce ex ante regulatory rules for “gatekeepers” in online platform markets, is one of the most important pieces of legislation to emanate from Brussels in recent decades. It not only has the potential to...

The growth of Internet access enabled the creation of functions (e.g., e-commerce and search) that were initially convenient but which a small number of firms used to achieve winner-takes-all, through the application of ICTs, network externalities and two-sided markets. They turned themselves...

The literature on the effects of telecommunications infrastructure investments find positive macroeconomic effects, however, it is severely constrained because it could hitherto only analyze investment up to “basic” broadband but not up to the newer generations of “fast” and...

We evaluate the impact of a major European state aid program for broadband deployment applied to rural areas in the German State of Bavaria in the years 2010 and 2011. Using difference-in-differences estimation strategies, we find that aided municipalities have – depending on broadband quality...

We evaluate the impact of a major European state aid programme for broadband deployment applied to rural areas in the German state of Bavaria in the years 2010 and 2011. Using matched difference-in-differences estimation strategies, we find that aided municipalities have - depending on broadband...