The Mobile Broadband and Fixed Broadband Battle in Swedish market: Exploring complementary or substitution

The mobile broadband (MBB) in Swedish market has become a more attractive opportunity for service providers, with growing demand for ubiquitous broadband connectivity after the mobile operators got 3G license in 2000. MBB seems to have more advantage compare to Fixed broadband (FBB) in term of mobility, compatibility and quality of service. This paper aims to explore the current broadband situation in Swedish market, in particular whether the mobile broadband is a complementary or substitute by using descriptive analysis. The data is collected from the Post- och telestyrelsen (PTS) Survey and the secondary data from PTS during 2002-2009. The findings indicate that the MBB and FBB subscribers remain growing, but the issue of complementary and substitution between MBB and FBB cannot be given an answer at this stage. The crucial problem of comparing MBB and FBB is the different units of measurement. Also, the potential of avoiding regulation by service providers is discussed since the market participants in FBB and MBB services are the same players. The rapid growth of MBB together with a lower degree of regulation in mobile services may attract the market player to put their effort more in MBB market. Moreover, the gap between broadband infrastructure coverage and the usage of this service is huge. Thus, the inefficiency of BB infrastructure utilization becomes another issue that NRAs could consider. --Mobile broadband,Fixed broadband,Complementary,Substitution

An analysis of mobile internet service in Thailand: Implications for bridging digital divide

Mobile Internet is growing around the world without exception for developing countries like Thailand by passing the poor legacy wired infrastructure. This study attempts to provide guidance to a national regulatory agency (NRA) by addressing the following question: What are the key determining factors to explain the probability that individual consumer will use mobile Internet? The discrete choice model is employed to empirically examine whether the service and application attributes, socio-economic variables and service provider has systematic link with the decision of consumer. The data from a national survey in 2010 commissioned by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) of Thailand is used for the analysis. Based on the findings, fixed telephony, e-mail, age, area of living and mobile operator are recognized as the strongest determinants for mobile Internet adoption. The findings suggest that the mobile Internet becomes an alternative technology to bridge the digital divide since a group of people who have no fixed Internet connection at home they can connect the Internet via mobile Internet. As such, telecom regulator and policy makers need to consider the policies regarding to infrastructure investment frequency allocation, content and application development and competition in order to stimulate the growth of mobile Internet adoption and close the digital divide within country. --Mobile Internet,digital divide,developing country

Customer Loyalty on Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) in Thailand

This study aims to investigate the customer loyalty on Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) in Thailand. Data were collected from the accidental sampling which consists of 400 IPTV customers in Bangkok through the self-administered questionnaire in 2014. Descriptive statistics, including percentage, mean and standard deviation, path analysis were employed for hypothesis testing. The results showed that majority of respondent are female, age between 18-25 years old, work at private company and have average income 10,000-20,000 THB. Customer expectation and customer loyalty have a highest impact to customer loyalty if compared to others variables. Service providers should attempt to enhance the content, improve the user interface, system reliability and connectivity as customer will regard the service as valuable service. This could help service providers maintain and gain their market share, increasing their profitability and performance

An analysis of mobile internet service in Thailand: Implications for bridging digital divide

Mobile Internet is growing around the world without exception for developing countries like Thailand by passing the poor legacy wired infrastructure. This study attempts to provide guidance to a national regulatory agency (NRA) by addressing the following question: What are the key determining factors to explain the probability that individual consumer will use mobile Internet? The discrete choice model is employed to empirically examine whether the service and application attributes, socio-economic variables and service provider has systematic link with the decision of consumer. The data from a national survey in 2010 commissioned by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) of Thailand is used for the analysis. Based on the findings, fixed telephony, e-mail, age, area of living and mobile operator are recognized as the strongest determinants for mobile Internet adoption. The findings suggest that the mobile Internet becomes an alternative technology to bridge the digital divide since a group of people who have no fixed Internet connection at home they can connect the Internet via mobile Internet. As such, telecom regulator and policy makers need to consider the policies regarding to infrastructure investment frequency allocation, content and application development and competition in order to stimulate the growth of mobile Internet adoption and close the digital divide within country

Understanding the digital divide: A literature survey and ways forward

The term digital divide was introduced in the mid-1990s and defined as the gap separating those who have access to new forms of information technology from those who do not. The digital divide remains an important public policy debate that encompasses social, economic and political issues. This paper presents a literature review and classification scheme for digital divide research. The review covers journal articles published between 2001 and 2010 in three types of journals: (1) Information technology & information systems, (2) Economics and business & management and (3) Social science. A classification of digital divide literature and a comprehensive list of references are provided. The results show that the digital divide is a multifaceted phenomenon, due to the many dimensions of determinant factors. Recent studies have included socio-economic, institutional and physiological factors in order to gain a greater understanding of the digital divide. Among other findings, they show that technological determinism is not sufficient to explain the emergence of the digital divide. Moreover, several types of technologies were investigated, both from empirical and conceptual standpoints. The Internet is the most commonly studied technology. The divide in access and usage are discussed at the global, social and democratic levels by employing a quantitative method, either a survey or data analysis, as the main method. However, there is less discussion in developing countries and at the level of the organization (i.e. SMEs, the private sector and the public sector). The qualitative research method could be seen as a complementary method to fill the gap in the current research. The choice of policies which have been recommended to the policy maker and national regulatory agency (NRA) are also presented and discussed at the end of this paper. Several initiatives made at the country and regional levels and by international organizations have also attempted to create a combined policy. This may suggest that the combined policy is the current trend among digital divide policies. Therefore, there is a need for future research to examine these determinants through the context of global, social and democratic divides. The results would provide some insight into how diverse people in different areas adopt ICTs. --Digital divide,Literature review,Future research

The Mobile Broadband and Fixed Broadband Battle in Swedish Market: Complementary or substitution?

This paper aims to investigate the current broadband situation in Swedish market, in particular whether the mobile broadband (MBB) is a complementary or substitute service to fixed broadband (FBB) by using multinomial logit model. The data is collected from the Post- och telestyrelsen (PTS) survey in 2009 together with a secondary data on price of broadband service for each service providers. The findings indicate that price and type of housing are the major determinant for broadband connections. In addition, the living area and service provider affect the probability of using broadband. Considering the own price elasticities, cable is more inelastic compared to DSL, LAN/Fiber and MBB while the cross price elasticities show that MBB is complementary service to FBB in Sweden at this stage. However, the cross price elasticities of FBBs and MBB report that there is high possibility that MBB could be substitution service to FBB in the near future.mobile broadband; fixed broadband; Complementary; substitution

Willingness to pay for cloud computing service of SMEs in Thailand

The great promise of cloud computing is the immediate access to enterprise grade software and next generation Information Technology solutions. Cloud service enables SMEs anywhere to expand their market reach, delivery and service, and customer interaction. Some small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are yet to fully realize the advantages of cloud solutions. In the meantime, hundreds of cloud vendors are preparing for the expected major upswing in popularity among cloud services for SMEs and for private consumers. This study examines the factor affecting a decision to use cloud computing service for Thai SMEs. A questionnaire was employed for data collection from a sample of SMEs that use cloud computing technology in the Bangkok area during January 2015- June 2015. A statistic model was utilized in order to analyses the determined factor on using cloud computing service of Thai SMEs. Moreover, the willingness-to-pay (WTP) to additional cloud computing service was calculated. The findings can be used to gauge SMEs demand for improved cloud computing services

Demand for internet access and use of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Thailand

The aim of this paper is to analyse the demand and use of Internet access by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Thailand. Given the huge importance of SMEs to a national economy such as Thailand, this paper dives into the data to understand the magnitude of the issue. Official 2010 Thai government statistics state there are 2.82 million SMEs with unregistered SMEs triple this size. This compares to a population figure of 66.79 million and an Internet user community of 36 million users. This study therefore set out to empirically examine by use of a bivariate probit model whether the variables of computer availability, business sector, SME size, organizational form or foreign shareholding has a systematic link to Internet access. After this, once Internet use was determined, to analyse and estimate specific usage. The impact of these factors varies from service to service (i.e. e-mail, searching, retrieving and interacting with governmental agencies or purchasing goods and services online). Implications suggest that SME Internet connectivity and subsidy should be considered by key policy makers while developing and implementing more robust infrastructure and better support which could stimulate the growth of Internet access and use. Along with fixed/land line technologies, wireless broadband technologies such as 3G/4G could be another alternative to solve the lack of fixed infrastructure and provide an opportunity for SME Internet services. This must also be combined with better education and support for the entrepreneurial SME owner/manager

ความหลากหลายของยีน Transthyretin และ ApoE ในคนไทย

Thesis (M.Sc., Biochemistry)--Prince of Songkla University, 200

The impacts of network effects and multi-service provision on consumer switching costs in the Swedish telecommunications market

The Swedish telecommunications market has been liberalised since 1990s. Liberalisation gave an opportunity to several new entrants to enter to the market. Consumers also gained benefits from more telecom providers and services to choose from, and lower telecom prices. The Swedish telecom market is now more competitive than it was in the pre-liberalisation period. However, the telecom market is somewhat different from other markets. Network effects and high consumer switching costs are main features and crucial issues for competition in this market. Incumbent operators tend to use some induced network effects strategies, such as tariff-mediated network effects, local network effects, and multi-service provision to raise switching costs of consumers and gain more competitive advantages. The thesis aims to investigate the impacts of two main strategies of telecom providers, network effects and multi-service provision, on consumer switching costs. The impacts of tariff-mediated network effects and local network effects have been examined in the Swedish mobile communications market. The findings suggest that tariff-mediated network effects can lock-in existing mobile subscribers to larger mobile operators. Interestingly, tariff-mediated network effects could not be used by larger mobile operators to gain new mobile subscribers during the period of study. However, larger mobile operators can potentially utilize tariff-mediated network effects to increase their market share in later stages. In addition, the results show that local network effects can create switching barriers, particularly for customers of larger mobile operators since they receive lower monthly bills than customers of smaller operators. Hence, they are less likely to switch to smaller operators. Furthermore, most of telecom providers in Sweden are multi-service provision providers. They provide various broadband access technologies and several telecom services. The empirical results reveal that mobile broadband (MB) is a substitution service to fixed broadband (FB). Broadband providers can encourage their customers to migrate from MB to FB technology within the same carrier. This suggests that multi-service provision in broadband Internet access can raise consumer switching costs. Additionally, the results also show that multi-service providers can utilize their economies of scope together with a discount to create switching costs for their customers, since consumers tend to buy more telecom services from them. This indicates that the current consumers of these providers are locked in. Search costs and the uncertain costs may also encourage consumers to use the service from the service provider of which they already have experience. Therefore, multi-service providers who have a dominant position in a specific telecom service could utilize their position to encourage their existing customers to buy more services. The thesis provides policy recommendations to reduce consumer switching costs and enhance the level of competition in the telecom market. A bill-and-keep interconnection scheme is proposed to reduce and prevent the potential impacts of tariff-mediated network effects. A bill-and-keep can also hinder incumbents from setting a high termination charge to raise the off-net prices of their rivals. Additionally, revised broadband market definitions should be instituted since there is evidence of substitution between MB and FB. The market for bundle services also needs to be explicitly defined. Precise market definitions will lead to more accurate market analysis