Techno-economic analysis on Mobile Network Sharing contribution to social welfare at 4G-5G area in Hungary

Telecommunication sector faces to parallel investments into both fixed and mobile (5G) networks, however return on investments lag behind profit expectations. Co-investment, like mobile network sharing is a cost efficiency enabler that may accelerate price decrease, may allow earlier, higher coverage and may improve capacity and quality parameters, like download speed, therefore altogether contributes to social welfare increase. The purpose of this paper to assess the Hungarian mobile network sharing that not cleared by the competition regulator, however has been placed in unchanged form for 8 years. The research question is to assess what is the connection between mobile network sharing and social welfare improvement at 4G - 5G mobile broadband rollout. The finding is that, majority of network sharing procompetitive effects allowing benefits, but anticompetitive effects not causing marked distortion. Affordable connectivity prices for information society roots in operators’ cost efficiency, however further research required to assess proper level of efficiency gains pass through to customers and appropriate level of access pricing to shared infrastructure for other rival operators in Hungary. Mobile Network Sharing’s benefits may outweigh potential drawbacks, but due to lack of regulatory clearance, 5G rollout launched without sharing, causing social welfare loss. The originality of the empirical research is despite network sharing not cleared, procompetitive advantages may outweigh anticompetitive ones

Network sharing and co-investments in NGN as a way to fulfill the goal with the digital agenda

The European Commission and most European countries have set ambitious broadband targets aiming to provide up to 100 Mbits to the end-customers. On back of a declining fixed market, negative growth for operators and a slow take up of fiber while maintaining high capex levels operators will ultimately be forced to take innovative approaches towards broadband investments. This paper relates co-investments in NGA to the regulatory framework in the form of SMP regulation and competition law making the conclusion that the current regulatory framework is sufficient to avoid a distorted competition on the market. A number of examples of ongoing co-investment projects are presented underscoring a growing interest for co-investments and indicating that co-investments, at this point, are not hampering competition. The mobile industry has gradually moved towards network sharing indicating a tendency towards vertical disintegration, although so far only a tendency. The ongoing structural separation of Telecom New Zealand with the establishment of a separate network and wholesale company is an indication of this development. The paper concludes by stating that regulators have appropriate tools to handle potential competition issues regarding coinvestments, that co-investments could be a vehicle for reaching the broadband targets, that there are efficiency gains for operators to make by lower Opex and capex, and ultimately giving network companies the means to utilize their balance sheet in order to increase the return.NGA,co-investment,SMP regulation,horizontal and vertical agreements,capex,network sharing,financial gearing

A Sharing- and Competition-Aware Framework for Cellular Network Evolution Planning

Mobile network operators are facing the difficult task of significantly increasing capacity to meet projected demand while keeping CAPEX and OPEX down. We argue that infrastructure sharing is a key consideration in operators' planning of the evolution of their networks, and that such planning can be viewed as a stage in the cognitive cycle. In this paper, we present a framework to model this planning process while taking into account both the ability to share resources and the constraints imposed by competition regulation (the latter quantified using the Herfindahl index). Using real-world demand and deployment data, we find that the ability to share infrastructure essentially moves capacity from rural, sparsely populated areas (where some of the current infrastructure can be decommissioned) to urban ones (where most of the next-generation base stations would be deployed), with significant increases in resource efficiency. Tight competition regulation somewhat limits the ability to share but does not entirely jeopardize those gains, while having the secondary effect of encouraging the wider deployment of next-generation technologies

Wi-Fi Offload: Tragedy of the Commons or Land of Milk and Honey?

Fueled by its recent success in provisioning on-site wireless Internet access, Wi-Fi is currently perceived as the best positioned technology for pervasive mobile macro network offloading. However, the broad transitions of multiple collocated operators towards this new paradigm may result in fierce competition for the common unlicensed spectrum at hand. In this light, our paper game-theoretically dissects market convergence scenarios by assessing the competition between providers in terms of network performance, capacity constraints, cost reductions, and revenue prospects. We will closely compare the prospects and strategic positioning of fixed line operators offering Wi-Fi services with respect to competing mobile network operators utilizing unlicensed spectrum. Our results highlight important dependencies upon inter-operator collaboration models, and more importantly, upon the ratio between backhaul and Wi-Fi access bit-rates. Furthermore, our investigation of medium- to long-term convergence scenarios indicates that a rethinking of control measures targeting the large-scale monetization of unlicensed spectrum may be required, as otherwise the used free bands may become subject to tragedy-of-commons type of problems.Comment: Workshop on Spectrum Sharing Strategies for Wireless Broadband Services, IEEE PIMRC'13, to appear 201

Competition via investment,an efficient model for FTTH roll-out

The debate on the regulation of Next General Access started in Europe several years ago. It addresses the question of whether or not fibre access networks should be subject to the same regulation as the copper local loop. This debate is often examined as competition vs. investment. The present paper suggests that the best way for regulation to solve the dilemma is to promote competition through competitive investments in the fibre access market. In particular a combination of individual and co-investment from/among competing fibre operators could provide the desired outcome in terms of efficient investment, coverage, competition, innovation and prices/cost. Such an option corresponds to the choice of several European national regulators. It is also the the historical and highly successful option used in European mobile markets.NGA, FTTH, Regulation, Competition, Dynamic and Static Efficiency.

Costs and benefits of superfast broadband in the UK

This paper was commissioned from LSE Enterprise by Convergys Smart Revenue Solutions to stimulate an open and constructive debate among the main stakeholders about the balance between the costs, the revenues, and the societal benefits of ‘superfast’ broadband. The intent has been to analyse the available facts and to propose wider perspectives on economic and social interactions. The paper has two parts: one concentrates on superfast broadband deployment and the associated economic and social implications (for the UK and its service providers), and the other considers alternative social science approaches to these implications. Both parts consider the potential contribution of smart solutions to superfast broadband provision and use. Whereas Part I takes the “national perspective” and the “service provider perspective”, which deal with the implications of superfast broadband for the UK and for service providers, Part II views matters in other ways, particularly by looking at how to realise values beyond the market economy, such as those inherent in neighbourliness, trust and democrac

The regulation of national roaming

National roaming is a measure that can be agreed commercially between operators to extend coverage or can be imposed or facilitated by governments as a means to increase competition amongst networks. It has been used with varying degrees of success in a range of countries, notably in the European Union. It has generally faced resistance from established operators, reluctant to assist prospective competitors and reduce their shares of the market. In some countries implementation has been so poor as to fail in the objectives. The absence of agreed procedures and performance indicators may have contributed to some of those failures. The costs of deploying third generation networks are causing some operators to look at more extensive agreements, sharing radio access networks, rather than national roaming. A further factor has been the lack of prospective entrants in mature markets, making national roaming less important than had been expected. --