Call centers' managers are interested in obtaining accurate forecasts of call arrivals because these are a key input in staffing and scheduling decisions. Therefore their ability to achieve an optimal balance between service quality and operating costs ultimately hinges on forecast accuracy. We...

The quality of the Philippine telecommunication/information and communication technology (ICT) regulatory environment is significantly below what is considered international best practice. Using a scoring system developed by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), where 100 points...

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...

This paper exploits variations in the timing of telecommunications reforms across Europe to analyze the relationship between the rise of alternative work arrangements and the emergence of the Internet. The paper evaluates whether sectors that are technologically more dependent on information and...

The optimal market structure in the mobile industry is an important topic in the mobile industry. In this paper, we use two theoretical frameworks and a structural estimation approach to assess the effects of market structure on consumer surplus in symmetric mobile markets. When mobile services...

Historically, the development of tele-communications has been at the heart of State policy based on a set of principles revolving around notions of modernisation, on the one hand, and nation-building, on the other. They were operationalized in State planning for domestic infrastructure,...

Forced data localisation measures are on the rise around the world, fragmenting the Internet and increasing costs for businesses and consumers. Until the year 2000, only 15 measures were imposed globally. By 2007, the number of measures doubled and it more than doubled again until today. The...

In recent years across Europe, mobile operators have made a number of attempts to consolidate. Consolidation, whether it is successful or not, inevitably focuses on the number of mobile network operators present in a market. Largely overlooked in the discussion of how many mobile network...

The study examines the effect of investment in telecommunication infrastructure on economic growth in Nigeria. Using time series data from 1980 and 2012, the study employs autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach proposed by Pesaran et al., (2001) to estimate the long run...

We provide a structured overview of the quantitative literature on the economic impacts of telecommunications networks and broadband internet. Differentiating between wireline and wireless technologies as well as broadband availability and broadband adoption, respectively, we review studies...

This paper first summarizes the macroeconomic and trade performance of Senegal, emphasizing the limits of traditional exports. It then focuses on three export sectors which have had some success in the past and have good potential for future growth: tourism, horticulture and information...

This article analyzes long-term value creation or destruction in mergers and acquisitions in the telecommunications sector. After characterizing the market targeted by the analysis (telecommunications) and discussing and selecting the most suitable long-term methodology, we will make an...

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...

Fixed telephony has long been a fundamentally important market for European telecommunications operators. The liberalisation and the introduction of regulation in the end of the 1990s, however, allowed new entrants to compete with incumbents at the retail level. A rapid price decline and a...

This paper aims to investigate the main determinants of Telecommunications demand for European countries (EU). For this reason, a panel data set is used consisting of 19 EU countries over the period 1991-2010 capturing the years before and after the liberalization process. The goal is to clarify...

Net neutrality is defined as the concept in which Internet service providers are obliged to treat all data streams equally, independent of which application, service, device, sender or receiver is involved. They are as such forbidden to block, throttle or alter data traffic over their networks....

A large body of research has focused on measuring innovation and the innovativeness of firms. One option frequently chosen is to analyse quantitative indicators published, often at the expense of an intimate understanding of the specific industry or firm context. Another option is to rely on...

According to static models of industrial organization, a rise in competition decreases prices. In this paper, I test whether this conclusion can be reversed in the mobile telecommunications markets where dynamic efficiency effects might be significant. The empirical test relies on the change in...

In this paper, we design a theoretical model to analyze the impact of the number of firms on investment in the wireless communications industry. Our model extends the Salop's framework by introducing investment in quality that either reduces the marginal cost of production or shifts the...

Well-developed infrastructure systems and services are vital means of enhancing the connectivity of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member economies. In essence, efforts by APEC to enhance connectivity through infrastructure should be considered regional public goods since these create...

The study identifies outstanding issues and bottlenecks and provides recommendations to facilitate the Philippines' full compliance to its commitments to the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). Various in-depth interviews and surveys were conducted with concerned stakeholders from government...

Myanmar's recent socioeconomic and political reforms have signaled a readiness to reintegrate into the world economy. To leapfrog the economy and accelerate growth, the country should take advantage of digital technology. This paper assesses Myanmar's information and communication technology...

This paper estimates the impact of entries and mergers on the price of mobile voice services in a panel database of 27 European Member States between 2003 and 2010. Our difference-in-differences econometric methodology exploits the variance in different structural changes between countries to...

Under strict net neutrality Internet service providers (ISPs) are required to carry data without any differentiation and at no cost to the content provider. We provide a simple framework with a monopoly ISP to evaluate different net neutrality rules. Content differs in its sensitivity to delay....

In 2000, there were as many countries served by a single mobile network as by network competition. Today, only 30 countries, representing less than 3% of the world’s population, are served by a single network. There has been considerable discussion about the optimal number of network operators...

This article reviews the effectiveness of Colombia’s social telecommunications policy in terms of promoting fixed broadband. With a trajectory of almost a decade with subsidies for residential fixed voice, the government changed its policy in the late 1990s moving towards community access for...

Fixed telephony has long been a fundamentally important market for European telecommunications operators. The liberalisation and the introduction of regulation in the end of the 1990s, however, allowed new entrants to compete with incumbents at the retail level. A rapid price decline and a...

Central features of today’s electronic communications markets are complementarities between the different layers of the value chain, substitutability between some applications, network effects in the provision of content and services, two-sided business models that partly involve indirect...

Cost cap tariffs are pay-per-use tariffs for which costs cannot exceed a predefined cost limit. They were recently introduced to telecommunications markets, but were previously also applied in the insurance industry as deductibles or in the rental industry as day rates. This paper develops and...

This paper investigates how spectrum policy affects the diffusion of innovation in the telecommunications sector, and is part of a general discussion on expanding spectrum policy aims to address sector innovativeness. We argue that innovation can be analytically depicted not only as the...

The formation and evolution of digital service platforms is changing the balance of powers in the ICT industry. In particular, telecommunications operators feel the need to gain more control over the creation and provision of new services and to revise their roles in different service...

This paper empirically assesses the impact of the intensity of competition on investment in new technologies within the mobile telecommunications industry. Using firm level panel data and an instrumental variable estimation it finds an inverted-U relationship between competition intensity and...

The availability of undersea cables around Africa has been transformed by a recent surge of investment, ending the monopoly in West Africa and an absence in East Africa. Private investors alone and with governments have funded the laying of cables. Consequently, previous calls for regulated...

Founded in 1987 as a sales agent of PBX (private branch exchange), Huawei has become one of the world's leaders in the ICT Industry. It initially had little technological and management knowledge, but competed with the incumbents including Sino-foreign joint ventures (JVs), state-owned firms,...