We study the dual relationship between market structure and prices and between market structure and investment in mobile telecommunications. Using a uniquely constructed panel of mobile operators’ prices and accounting information across 33 OECD countries between 2002 and 2014, we document...

Can digital information and communication technology (ICT) foster mass political mobilization? We use a novel geo-referenced dataset for the entire African continent between 1998 and 2012 on the coverage of mobile phone signal together with georeferenced data from multiple sources on the...

Can digital information and communication technology (ICT) foster mass political mobilization? We use a novel geo-referenced dataset for the entire African continent between 1998 and 2012 on the coverage of mobile phone signal together with geo-referenced data from multiple sources on the...

On 25 November 2015, the European Union enacted new rules for international mobile roaming (IMR) under Regulation 2015/2120, which seeks to implement a Roam Like at Home (RLAH) regime among the member states of the European Union. Questions remain, however, as to whether it is possible to...

This volume was prepared by Constantin Mang while he was working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes a short introduction and four self-contained chapters that focus on ICT...

The European Commission (EC) draft Regulation (2016)2 on wholesale roaming market proposes a massive decrease of the regulated roaming wholesale price caps for data with a drop from €5ct/MB to €0.85 ct/MB to enable the abolition of retail roaming surcharges in Europe by 15 June 2017....

Cross-country price comparison is a useful, but often deceptive exercise. The paper addresses the underlying methodological challenges, offering a practicable solution, which is both sound enough and meaningful for the comparison of prices on different markets. The simple and methodologically...

This volume was prepared by Constantin Mang while he was working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes a short introduction and four self-contained chapters that focus on ICT...

Die gegenwärtige Vorgehensweise beim Vergleich von Mobilfunktarifen sieht so aus» daß zunächst ein Nutzungsprofil vorgegeben wird, dann die dazugehörigen Rechnungsbeträge der einzelnen Tarife ermittelt werden und schließlich eine Beurteilung der Tarife durch den Vergleich der...

Internationalisation plays a key role in the strategy of many firms, with one of the key benefits being improved performance. Since the early 1990s, internationalisation has played a central role within the mobile telecommunications industry, giving rise to multinational enterprises operating in...

The Radio Sector of the ITU (ITU-R) has been involved in two aspects of personal mobile communication systems, namely defining the standards and identifying frequency bands related to these systems under the label of the International Mobile Telecommunication (IMT). This paper has investigated...

This paper analyses the consequences on European markets of the introduction of "Roam Like At Home" (RLAH) obligation. Regulatory authorities have two main preoccupations when implementing RLAH obligation: the sustainability at retail level for home markets and the sustainability of RLAH at...

The Japanese broadband market was very competitive until recently owing to the interconnection rules and the significant market power (SMP) regulations on the incumbent fixed telecom giant, NTT East/West. Japan's regulator, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), could let the...

Minimum term contracts ("MTC") are widely used in the communications sector. They are frequently associated with equipment subsidies. But they are also offered to customers in exchange for a discount. MTCs usually come with an early termination fee ("ETF"), a penalty the customer has to pay for...

The telecommunication sector within the European Union is facing fundamental changes, both because of global developments such as the introduction of OTT services and because of the hurdles along the way towards the transition to a European Digital Single Market. In this unified market many...

In this paper a study of SMS messages in a large US based cellular carrier utilizing both customer reported SMS spam and network Call Detail Records (CDRs) is conducted to develop a comprehensive understanding of SMS spam in order to develop strategies and approaches to detect and control SMS...

Despite a continued build-out of mobile networks, both mobile network coverage and capacity problems in rural areas are increasing. This counterintuitive situation is due to the exponential growth in mobile data usage, the long inter-base station site distance in rural areas and the increasing...

Any assessment of ubiquitous, intelligent and mobile communication networks has to start with an adequate assessment of the underlying infrastructure. As the digital age continues its evolution into the new paradigms of big data and smart things, the digital divide evolves with it. While the...

Product bundling may benefit or harm consumers dependingon the correlation betweenconsumer willingness to pay for the bundledgoods and the levels of market dominance of firms. We develop astructural demand model that allows for correlatedconsumer's willingness to pay and flexible...

Internet of Things (IoT) is generally understood to be a realisation of the vision of ubiquitous computing, wherein any type of device will be connected to the Internet and will be controlled by remote software. The transition of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) ecosystem towards...