Do International Roaming Alliances Harm Consumers?

We develop a model of international roaming in which mobile network operators (MNOs) compete both on the wholesale market to sell roaming services to foreign operators and on the retail market for subscribers. The operators own a network infrastructure only in their home country. To allow their subscribers to place or receive calls abroad, they have to buy roaming services provided by foreign MNOs. We show that in absence of international alliances and capacity restrictions, competition between foreign operators would drive wholesale unit prices down to marginal costs. However, operators prefer to form international alliances in which members mutually provide roaming services at inefficiently high wholesale prices. Alliances serve as a commitment device to soften competition on the retail market and harm consumers through excessively high per call prices. Although operators compete in two-part tariffs for subscribers, wholesale roaming prices do not exhibit profit-neutrality as do access prices in related models of net- work interconnection. We also show that international alliances are endogenously formed if not prevented by regulation.International Roaming, Vertical Relations, Regulation

Mobile search, a case for next generation information society policies

After more than a decade of development work and hopes, the usage of mobile Internet has finally taken off. Now, we are witnessing the first signs of evidence what might become the explosion of mobile content and applications that will be shaping the (mobile) Internet of the future. Similar to the wired Internet, search will become very relevant for the usage of mobile Internet. Within the mobile ecosystem framework, this paper will discuss if and how intense public action in the mobile search domain should (could) be. Potential actions refer both to ‘conventional’ and 'non-conventional' regulatory approaches. Public administrations as procurement bodies may leverage services and thus acting as early deployers of applications is an example of a ‘conventional’ case, while the use of the wealth of public data with high added value in mobile search scenarios would be one of a ‘non-conventional’ case. The paper will present a list of different policy options and analyse their feasibility. These include policies options aimed both at the demand side (user-oriented) and at the supply side (innovation-support policies, regulatory policies, industrial-type policies, …) of mobile search

Customer empowerment in tourism through Consumer Centric Marketing (CCM)

We explain Consumer Centric Marketing (CCM) and adopt this new technique to travel context. Benefits and disadvantages of the CCM are outlined together with warnings of typical caveats Value: CCM will be expected as the norm in the travel industry by customers of the future, yet it is only the innovators who gain real tangible benefits from this development. We outline current and future opportunities to truly place your customer at the centre and provide the organisation with some real savings/gains through the use of ICT Practical Implications: We offer tangible examples for travel industry on how to utilise this new technology. The technology is already available and the ICT companies are keen to establish ways how consumers can utilise it, i.e. by providing ‘content’ for these ICT products the travel industry can fully gain from these developments and also enhance consumers’ gains from it. This can result in more satisfied customers for the travel (as well as ICT) companies thus truly adopting the basic philosophy of marketin

Nine Regimes of Radio Spectrum Management: A 4-Step Decision Guide

Diverse radio spectrum management regimes are defined according to 4 levels of options: - Should frequencies be allocated according to a harmonised plan? - Should the technologies allowed be standardised? - Should spectrum usage rights be exclusive, eased, or collective? - Should usage rights be assigned through market mechanisms (auctions and trading), administrative procedures, or hybrid procedures? These guidelines propose a balanced set of decision criteria, thus allowing the completion of rigorous impact assessments. It describes the possible regimes resulting from the combined choices. The taxonomy illustrates the possible rationales for a diversity of regimes broader than the usually exposed standard trilogy of Command and Control, Market and Commons: This includes Harmonised neutrality, Administered neutrality, Technology neutrality in Command and Control context, Harmonised neutrality Plus, Private Commons and California Dream. The nine regimes described can also be considered as a map with which to navigate in order to accommodate institutional and technological transitions over time. This allows decision-makers to come-up with informed choices using all the technical information available, and based on definite criteria and a rigorous methodology.radio spectrum;spectrum policy; telecom regulation; spectrum regimes

Mobile Data Roaming and Incentives for Investment in Rural Broadband Infrastructure

Mobile broadband Internet access is highly important to the American economy and millions of users. There were almost 200 million mobile broadband connections by the end of 2013 in the United States, far more than the number of fixed broadband connections (FCC, 2014a, Table 1). The economic activity created by the provision and usage of mobile broadband is sizeable, and has been documented at the national level (Gruber and Koutroumpis, 2011; Thompson and Garbacz, 2011; Katz, 2012) and specifically for rural areas (Whitacre, Gallardo, and Strover, 2014). The benefits of mobile broadband—and indeed the entire broadband ecosystem—depend on investment in deploying and upgrading network infrastructure by broadband providers. Thus investment in mobile wireless infrastructure plays a vitally important role in sustaining the growth of the industry and the economy. Investment is also the means by which robust facilities-based competition among mobile broadband providers develops, to the benefit of consumers who enjoy more options, greater wireless coverage, and lower prices. The investigation here of the consequences of policy in the United States toward mobile data roaming begins in the next section with discussion of the general importance of investment in infrastructure for mobile broadband