Business model requirements and challenges in the mobile telecommunication sector

The telecommunications business is undergoing a critical revolution, driven by innovative technologies, globalization, and deregulation. Cellular networks and telecommunications bring radical changes to the way telecom businesses are conducted. Globalization, on the other hand, is tearing down legacy barriers and forcing monopolistic national carriers to compete internationally. Moreover, the noticeable progress of many countries towards deregulation coupled with liberalization is significantly increasing telecom market power and allowing severe competition. The implications of this transition have changed the business rules of the telecom industry. In addition, entrants into the cellular industry have had severe difficulties due to inexistent or weak Business Models (BMs). Designing a BM for a mobile network operator is complex and requires multiple actors to balance different and often conflicting design requirements. Hence, there is a need to enhance operators’ ability in determining what constitutes the most viable business model to meet their strategic objectives within this turbulent environment. In this paper, the authors identify the main mobile BM dimensions along with their interdependencies and further analysis provides mobile network operators with insights to improve their business models in this new ‘boundary-less’ landscape

Internet Governance : exploring the development link

This paper seeks to explore the issues of Internet governance from a development perspective. The WSIS process and the report of the UN Working group on Internet Governance provide an initial framework within which to develop the issues. These issues not only concern the equitable distribution of Internet resources and the ways in which a secure and reliable function of the Internet can be achieved, but also include issues of multi-lingualism and local content as well as the institutional setting of Internet governance mechanisms and participation. The paper observers that realising the contribution of the Internet to development goals requires a shift in policy focus away from supply side initiatives in the telecommunications sector to more co-ordinated approaches

Is Market-Oriented Reform Producing a “Two-Track” Europe? Evidence from Electricity and Telecommunications

The European Commission has formally recognised that adequate provision of basic household services, including energy, communications, water and transport, is key to ensuring equity, social cohesion and solidarity. Yet little research has been done on the impact of the reform of these services in this regard. This article offers an innovative way to explore such questions by analysing and contrasting stated and revealed preferences on citizen satisfaction with and expenditure on two services, electricity and telecommunications, in two large countries, Spain and the United Kingdom. In telecommunications, but to a much lesser extent in electricity, we find evidence that reform has led to a “two-track” Europe, where citizens who are elderly, not working or the less-educated behave differently in the market, with the result that they are less satisfied with these services than their younger, working, better-educated, counterparts

Emergent Global Information Infrastructure/Global Information Society: Regime Formation and the Impact on Africa

This paper combines a theoretical perspective on globalization and the information society with a critical usage of international regime theory in order to contribute to a better understanding of the current historical period of transition from an international telecommunications regime to a new and complex regime aimed at providing governance for the global information infrastructure and global information society. The paper employs a case-study approach to explore some of the specific national responses (i.e. South Africa) to this regime transition, with an analysis of potential best practices and lessons learned for other emerging economies.public finance, macroeconomic policy, policy design, international economic order, economic integration

Investment and Regulation in Telecommunications

This article presents the difficulties associated with the implementation of the regulatory goal of promoting investment and innovation within the area of sector specific regulation in telecoms. The encouragement of efficient investment is one of the major goals reflected in the EC and domestic legal rules on telecoms access as well as price- and rate of return regulation. The law and the interplay of the interests of incumbents and alternative operators create a fertile soil for the emergence of various regulatory concepts of stimulating investment and facility-based competition. Considered here are the concepts most frequently referred to in this context including: the notion of new and emerging markets, the ladder of investment theory, sunset clauses and dynamic pricing policies. However, most of these concepts had little influence on regulatory practice so far, seeing as telecoms regulation is mostly directed at service competition and effective utilisation of existing infrastructures. This fact is the result of national regulators balancing their various regulatory goals in the existing technical and economic environment of the sector. The approach of the Polish regulatory authority towards these concepts constitutes an example of this reality. The urgent need to establish a new policy for next generation networks and access, bringing new technologies and business models to the sector, will have to induce more recognition for some concepts presented in this article.telecommunication, regulation, investment, regulatory holidays, ladder of investment, sunset clause, price regulation, telecommunications access

Mergers and acquisitions in TV production, aggregation and distribution: challenges for competition, industrial and media policy

This paper focuses on the recent wave of M&A activity, both vertical and horizontal in TV production, aggregation and distribution industries, and discusses the implications of M&A activity for competition, industrial and media policymaking. Moreover, it aspires to set a forward-looking perspective on the regulation of M&A in the TV industry. It is argued that while EU competition policy has difficulties to fully grasp anti-competitive effects resulting from vertical M&A activity in particular, industrial and media-specific policies dealing with the creation of an economically and culturally sustainable, European broadcasting and distribution sector are virtually absent from national and European policy agendas. It is particular in the latter two domains of policymaking that policy action is necessary