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

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

การมีส่วนร่วมของพนักงานและความสามารถในการปฏิบัติงานของพนักงานในอุตสาหกรรมชิ้นส่วนยานยนต์ของไทย

การศึกษาครั้งนี้มีวัตถุประสงค์เพื่อวิเคราะห์อิทธิพลของการมีส่วนร่วมของพนักงาน ต่อความสามารถในการปฏิบัติงานของพนักงานในอุตสาหกรรมชิ้นส่วนยานยนต์ของไทย โดยเก็บรวบรวมข้อมูลด้วยแบบสอบถาม จากกลุ่มตัวอย่างที่เป็นพนักงานที่ปฏิบัติงานในโรงงานอุตสาหกรรมการผลิตชิ้นส่วนยานยนต์ในกรุงเทพมหานคร ปทุมธานี สมุทรปราการ ฉะเชิงเทรา ชลบุรี และระยอง จำนวน 383 คน  สถิติที่ใช้ในการวิเคราะห์ข้อมูล ได้แก่ ร้อยละ และการวิเคราะห์โมเดลสมการโครงสร้าง (Structural Equation Modeling: SEM) ผลการศึกษาพบว่าเป็นเพศชาย ร้อยละ 55.1 อายุระหว่าง 25-35 ปี การศึกษาระดับปริญญาตรีหรือเทียบเท่า มีประสบการณ์ทำงานในโรงงานปัจจุบันที่ 1-5 ปี จากปัจจัยการมีส่วนร่วมของพนักงาน ทั้งหมด 4 ปัจจัยนั้น มี 3 ปัจจัย ได้แก่ (1) การมีส่วนร่วมด้านรางวัล (2) การมีส่วนร่วมด้านอำนาจหน้าที่ และ (3) การมีส่วนร่วมด้านข้อมูล มีค่าน้ำหนักองค์ประกอบมาตรฐานเท่ากับ .800, .789 และ .738 ตามลำดับ ที่มีอิทธิพลทางตรงเชิงบวกต่อความสามารถในการปฏิบัติงานของพนักงานในอุตสาหกรรมชิ้นส่วนยานยนต์ของไท

An analysis of mobile Internet access in Thailand: Implications for bridging the digital divide

Mobile Internet is growing around the world, bypassing the poor legacy of wired infrastructure. This growth can be observed even in developing countries like Thailand. To cope with this trend, this study attempts to provide guidance to a national regulatory agency (NRA) by addressing the following question: What are the key determinant factors for individual consumer to access mobile Internet? A discrete choice model is employed to examine empirically whether price, service, and application attributes, socio-economic variables, and service provider have a systematic link with the decision of the consumer. The data from a national survey in 2010 commissioned by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) of Thailand are used for the analysis.The results show that price, availability of fixed telephony, age, and living area are recognized as the strongest determinants for mobile Internet adoption. The findings also suggest that mobile Internet could be an alternative technology to bridge the digital divide, as the group of people that does not have fixed Internet connection at home can connect via mobile Internet. The price of mobile Internet service is inelastic, however, which means that an increase in price does not affect the propensity to access mobile Internet. This is a result of the lack of competition in fixed connection due to the concession, and it leads to limited choice for the consumer. Telecom regulators and policymakers therefore need to consider policies such as increasing competition and infrastructure investment in order to stimulate growth of mobile Internet adoption and close the digital divide in Thailand

Understanding the digital divide: Empirical studies of Thailand

The term digital divide was introduced in the 1990s to define the gap separating those who have access to new forms of information and communication technologies (ICTs) from those who do not. Later, scholars started looking more closely at the use of ICTs, instead of solely paying attention to access. The digital divide can exist at, for example, global (normally between developed and developing countries and between different regions), regional (between countries in the same region) and social level (within a particular country or society). The digital divide can thus be defined as the disparity between individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas at different socio-economic levels with regard to their opportunities to access information and communication technologies (ICTs) and their use of the Internet for a wide variety of activities. This thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of the digital divide by existing literature and empirical studies. The main focus is on the digital divide in Thailand, considering telecommunications services and attempts to provide guidance to a national regulatory agency (NRA) and policymakers. A collection of papers has been put together by addressing the following main research question: What are the determinants explaining and the possible policies bridging the digital divide in Thailand? To answer this question, a quantitative research strategy of econometric and financial modelling is employed. The data come from primary and secondary sources. The results of the thesis reveal that the digital divide in Thailand can be explained by several factors. The determinant factors for the regional divide are gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, urbanization, market competition, the existence of NRA, trade openness, the availability of infrastructure, market liberalization and privatization. The efforts to privatize state-owned enterprises and liberalize the market have not yet been successfully compared with those of other countries in the same region. In the context of the social divide, the findings suggest that not only market liberalization and privatization but also accessible infrastructure, social inequalities, media familiarity, availability of technology and service attributes, and the access price of mobile Internet are crucial factors in determining the digital divide in Thailand. These findings confirm that the issues of accessibility, availability and affordability of services and applications are all challenges facing the NRA and policy makers in bridging the digital divide. Alternative policies are discussed, and they reveal that combined policies integrated into the market mechanism and government intervention could be an option for bridging the digital divide in Thailand

Private costs of delayed privatization of TOT Public Company Limited

The purpose of this paper is to examine the private costs of delaying privatization of TOT Public Company Limited, a state-owned enterprise telephony carrier. To address the private costs of a delay in terms of privatization, a counterfactual forecasting model has been constructed for the years 2007-2012. The starting year of the evaluation is 2006, as this year was the deadline for privatization under the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement. The forecasting model uses the traditional investment approach as well as scenario analyses. The traditional investment approach and sensitivity analyses provide similar results. Both show that the benefit of delaying the privatization process could be higher than if the WTO-agreed time process for TOT privatization were followed, as the growth of revenue sharing and from concessionaires would be higher than if TOT were privatized. There are no benefits in the long run, however, as the growth rate of revenue in the base case is lower than that in the privatization case, leading to a reduction in the present value of the base case over time: hence, the longer the delay in privatization, the slower the firm growth

Private costs of delayed privatization of TOT Public Company Limited

The purpose of this paper is to examine the private costs of delaying privatization of TOT Public Company Limited, a state-owned enterprise telephony carrier. To address the private costs of a delay in terms of privatization, a counterfactual forecasting model has been constructed for the years 2007-2012. The starting year of the evaluation is 2006, as this year was the deadline for privatization under the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement. The forecasting model uses the traditional investment approach as well as scenario analyses. The traditional investment approach and sensitivity analyses provide similar results. Both show that the benefit of delaying the privatization process could be higher than if the WTO-agreed time process for TOT privatization were followed, as the growth of revenue sharing and from concessionaires would be higher than if TOT were privatized. There are no benefits in the long run, however, as the growth rate of revenue in the base case is lower than that in the privatization case, leading to a reduction in the present value of the base case over time: hence, the longer the delay in privatization, the slower the firm growth

The Third Generation (3G) Auction in Asia

This study examines a winner’s curse in the third generation (3G) spectrum auction for selected Asian countries during 2000-2006. The winner’s curse is a phenomenon that a winner will tend to overpay in an auction, making the license unprofitable. An event study has been employed as a method in order to assess a winner’s curse through the analysis of security prices of the firms involved in the auction. The cumulative abnormal return of stock price post auction indicates whether the firm in question paid too much for the license. The results reveal that there is a mix of positive and negative cumulative abnormal returns of winner firms. Most of the winner firms have a negative cumulative abnormal return until the end of auctions. After fourteen days, there are signs of reward since the stock prices of winning bidders increase. This finding indicates that the 3G licenses in Asian countries face a very short term of winner’s curse. The short period of a negative abnormal return is obtained by the reduction of reserve price and relaxation of the licensing condition by National Regulatory Agencies (NRAs)