The BBC is active in an increasing number of markets. In some cases the BBC enters the market using licence fee income; in others its commercial operations have linkages with licence-fee activities--for example, by provision of resources for programme making, joint funding of programmes, trailing...

In the course of encouraging competition in telecommunications markets, regulators in both Australia and the UK are developing proposals to impose accounting separation upon dominant incumbents. This paper examines the logic behind accounting separation as an alternative to structural...

This paper introduces a symposium on the economics and regulation of pay broadcasting. First it reviews the costs of providing combinations of analogue and digital television programming and telecommunication services using a variety of possible combinations of technologies and discusses demand...

Recent discussion of regulatory interventions in telecommunications markets have considered an approach in which competitors are encouraged progressively to make investments in network assets which are less and less easily replicable--thus climbing 'the ladder of investment.' The paper proposes...

The introduction of spectrum trading creates opportunities for operators, singly or jointly, to foreclose entry into downstream markets by accumulating unneeded spectrum holdings. After considering how these issues are treated under administrative methods of spectrum management, the paper...

This article describes the application of alternative cost allocation methodologies to the Hull telephone system, which provides service to a small area of the UK independently of British Telecom. The article first discusses alternative uses of and methods for allocating costs among access,...

Since mobile communications began in the United Kingdom in 1985, with the licensing of two cellular networks, the number of subscribers has grown to eight million. Much of this growth has occurred in the past five years, which have also seen the emergence of new competition in the form of two...

The paper reviews the preceeding theoretical and econometric analysis, and the case study of the Netherlands. It suggests that entrants' strategies will be influenced by the level of access prices and on the degree of investment in infrastructure which entrants have to make to be eligible to...

There is now strong interest among governments in allocating public funds for the purpose of promoting investment in very high speed broadband. Motives include industrial policy, and the attainment of equity objectives and of economic recovery. The paper examines the various dimensions of choice...

Regulation is often thought of as an activity that restricts behaviour and prevents the occurrence of certain undesirable activities, but the influence of regulation can also be enabling or facilitative, as when a market could potentially be chaotic if uncontrolled. This Handbook provides a...