Regulation of NGN: Structural Separation, Access Regulation, or No Regulation at All?

Since the introduction of Next Generation Networks (NGNs) by telecommunication network operators, national regulators have begun to adapt their access regulation regimes to the new technological conditions. The regulatory reactions gravitate towards three distinct regulatory trajectories: unregulated competition, access regulation, and structural separation. We first analyze the extent of market power in access Networks in NGNs from a technological perspective. Second, we use case studies to identify patterns between technological and market conditions and regulators' reactions in selected countries. We find that market power in the access network is likely to prevail. Regulatory reactions differ with the extent of infrastructure competition and the regulators position in the trade-off between promoting investment and protecting competition.Next Generation Network, deregulation, access regulation, structural separation

Regulation of NGN: Structural Separation, Access Regulation, or No Regulation at All?

Since the introduction of Next Generation Networks (NGNs) by telecommunication network operators, national regulators have begun to adapt their access regulation regimes to the new technological conditions. The regulatory reactions gravitate towards three distinct regulatory trajectories: unregulated competition, access regulation, and structural separation. We first analyze the extent of market power in access Networks in NGNs from a technological perspective. Second, we use case studies to identify patterns between technological and market conditions and regulators' reactions in selected countries. We find that market power in the access network is likely to prevail. Regulatory reactions differ with the extent of infrastructure competition and the regulators position in the trade-off between promoting investment and protecting competitionNext Generation Network, deregulation, access regulation, structural separation.

Convergence and next generation networks

Convergence and next generation networks and their potential impact on policies and regulations is the subject of this report, covering issues of competition in the new fibre environment, convergence of video, voice and data services, the rapid growth of new technologies, such as HDTV and mobile television, and the related demand for spectrum, as well as new possible "divides" between urban and rural areas created by the uneven development of high-speed fibre networks

Platform for open innovation and integrated solutions: the case of BT and its Next Generation Network (NGN)

This paper analyzes how innovation in services is being organised in the telecommunication industry after the bubble burst in the beginning of the 2000’s and how BT is applying the concept of ‘open innovation’ in order to sustain its competitiveness. After the bubble burst in the beginning of the 2000’s, the telecommunications industry is trying to find its way to growth. Internet services and broadband have changed the way customers perceive communication services. Traditional telecommunication companies, like BT, Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom have been urging to change in order to survive and sustain its competitiveness. One outcome of the industry was that the traditional PSTN (Public Switched Telecommunications Network) technology was not suitable anymore to deliver the multimedia services demanded by customers. The IP (Internet Protocol) has become an unprecedented agreement in the telecommunications industry and the traditional telecommunications companies started to transform its infrastructure based on this Internet-based technology. While this infrastructure transformation is under way, another huge challenge is to change the way these traditional telecommunications companies create, integrate and deliver new services. Service innovation on top of the IP platform is the ultimate challenge. The research was conducted through interviews and analysis of documents such as reports, newspaper articles and official Internet websites. The reports included annual reports of suppliers and incumbent service providers, and documents of regulators. The interviews were conducted with senior managers, managers and other practitioners of incumbent telecommunications service providers and suppliers, regulators, consultants and market research analysts. Initial findings suggest that incumbent telecommunications firms will be increasingly extracting value from platform and software sharing, exposing its ‘capabilities’ to third parties and developing business models to interoperate with other companies, co-creating new services. Thus, the ability to expose their capabilities in services, not to hide them, will be determinant of its success. Also important is the ability to offer integrated solutions to large firms as part of the service portfolio. And, in this context, the concept of open innovation and value innovation also find a fertile ground to be applied in services in the communication industry. Important dynamic capabilities identified in this context are strategic planning, project management, new product/service development (especially software development), supported by systems integration

Regulation of NGN: Structural Separation, Access Regulation, or No Regulation at All?

Since the introduction of Next Generation Networks (NGNs) by telecommunication network operators, national regulators have begun to adapt their access regulation regimes to the new technological conditions. The regulatory reactions gravitate towards three distinct regulatory trajectories: unregulated competition, access regulation, and structural separation. We first analyze the extent of market power in access Networks in NGNs from a technological perspective. Second, we use case studies to identify patterns between technological and market conditions and regulators' reactions in selected countries. We find that market power in the access network is likely to prevail. Regulatory reactions differ with the extent of infrastructure competition and the regulators position in the trade-off between promoting investment and protecting competition

Regulation of NGN: Structural Separation, Access Regulation, or No Regulation at All?

Since the introduction of Next Generation Networks (NGNs) by telecommunication network operators, national regulators have begun to adapt their access regulation regimes to the new technological conditions. The regulatory reactions gravitate towards three distinct regulatory trajectories: unregulated competition, access regulation, and structural separation. We first analyze the extent of market power in access Networks in NGNs from a technological perspective. Second, we use case studies to identify patterns between technological and market conditions and regulators' reactions in selected countries. We find that market power in the access network is likely to prevail. Regulatory reactions differ with the extent of infrastructure competition and the regulators position in the trade-off between promoting investment and protecting competition

Comparative analysis of LTE backbone transport techniques for efficient broadband penetration in a heterogeneous network morphology

In the bid to bring about a solution to the nagging problem associated with the provision of ubiquitous broadband access, Next Generation Network (NGN) popularly referred to as Long Term Evolution (LTE) network with appropriate network integration technique is recommended as solution. Currently, Internet Protocol/Multi-Protocol Label Switching (IP/MPLS) is the transport technique in LTE backbone infrastructure. This technique, however, suffers significantly in the event of failure of IP path resulting in delay and packet loss budgets across the network.The resultant effect is degradation in users’ quality of service (QoS) experience with real-time services.  A competitive alternative is the Internet Protocol /Asynchronous Transfer Mode (IP/ATM). This transport technique provides great dynamism in the allocation of bandwidth and supports varying requests of multimedia connections with diverse QoS requirements. This paper, therefore, seeks to evaluate the performance of these two transport techniques in a bid to establish the extent to which the latter technique ameliorates the aforementioned challenges suffered by the previous technique. Results from the simulation show that the IP/ATM transport scheme is superior to the IP/MPLS scheme in terms of average bandwidth utilization, mean traffic drop and mean traffic delay in the ratio of 9.8, 8.7 and 1.0% respectively