An up-to-date guide to the economic issues in telecommunications, delivering a comprehensive overview from mathematical models to practical applications. Covering hot topics such as app stores, auctions for advertisements, search engine business models, network neutrality and virtual network operators, this resource is ideal for graduate students, researchers and industry practitioners.

This book constitutes a collaborative and selected documentation of the scientific outcome of the European COST Action IS0605 Econ@Tel "A Telecommunications Economics COST Network" which run from October 2007 to October 2011. Involving experts from around 20 European countries, the goal of Econ@Tel was to develop a strategic research and training network among key people and organizations in order to enhance Europe's competence in the field of telecommunications economics. Reflecting the organization of the COST Action IS0605 Econ@Tel in working groups the following four major research areas are addressed: - evolution and regulation of communication ecosystems; - social and policy implications of communication technologies; - economics and governance of future networks; - future networks management architectures and mechanisms.

This textbook characterizes the economics of telecommunication services from an engineering perspective. The authors bring out the fundamental drivers of the industry and characterize networks from a graph theoretic perspective, including random, small world, and scale free networks. The authors relate the topology of a telecommunication network using circuit and packet switched architectures to throughput and other performance parameters. The pricing model proposed in this book is based on the cost of displaced opportunity as opposed to the cost of the elements of the network engaged in delivering a service. The displaced opportunity is characterized by the revenue associated with the service that the network could have alternatively delivered most efficiently using an identical level of resources. The book addresses other topics such as regulation in legacy networks, and net neutrality. Finally, the book introduces the application of game theory in a multi-vendor, multi-services competitive marketplace. The book aims to bridge the gap between the science of economics as practiced by economists and practice of pricing from a telecommunication engineer’s perspective. This book is suitable for use by senior undergraduate or graduate students of telecommunication engineering or researchers and practitioners in telecommunication engineering.

This textbook on network economics provides essential microeconomic instruments for the analysis of network sectors like telecommunications, transport or energy. Network-specific characteristics emerge both on the cost side and benefit side, requiring network providers to develop innovative entrepreneurial competition strategies for costing, pricing, and investment. From a competition policy perspective, a number of interesting questions arise: In which parts of networks is competition functional? In contrast, where is an abuse of market power to be expected? What is the division of labor between cartel authorities and regulatory agencies? The book develops an analytical framework for all network industries which allows readers to study entrepreneurial strategies as well as regulation and competition policies for network industries.

The mobile telecommunications industry is one of the most rapidly growing sectors around the world. This book offers a comprehensive economic analysis of the main determinants of growth in the industry. Harald Gruber demonstrates the importance of competitive entry and the setting of technological standards, both of which play a central role in their contribution to the fast diffusion of technology. Detailed country studies provide empirical evidence for the development of the main themes: the diffusion of mobile telecommunications services, the pricing policies in network industries, the role of entry barriers such as radio spectrum and spectrum allocation procedures. This research-based survey will appeal to a wide range of applied industrial economists within universities, government and the industry itself.

Roman Beck presents a new goods classification model to explore the dissemination of IT and e-business standards and designs two applications that support and improve firms' electronic interlaced communication by means of automation and standardization effects. He then examines how network effects drive the diffusion of communication standards and develops a model which is implemented as a simulation to show the dynamic interplay between direct and indirect network effects during the diffusion process. It also addresses critical mass and life cycle issues, as well as related utility changes in communication standards.

Contributing to a convergence of legal and economic approaches, The Economics of Antitrust and Regulation in Telecommunications integrates economic theory into current EU antitrust policy within the sector. The book addresses the role of competition and regulatory policies on a number of key issues in telecommunications, such as market definition, collective dominance, access to networks, and allocation of scarce resources.

Making a neighborhood of a nation -- Professor Morse's lightning -- Antimonopoly -- The new postalic dispensation -- Rich man's mail -- The talking telegraph -- Telephomania -- Second nature -- Gray wolves -- Universal service -- One great medium?

This major reference work provides a thorough and up-to-date survey and analysis of recent developments in the economics of telecommunications. The Handbookserves both as a source of reference and technical supplement for the field of telecommunications economics. Volume I reviews the traditional literature to bring readers up-to-date on the current treatment of telecommunications economics. The coverage includes: demand, supply, costs, market structure, regulation, interconnection and universal service. Volume II is concerned with future developments that will arise in the digital era. The coverage includes: internet, electronic commerce, mobile voice and data transmission, point-to-point and multi-point communication, regulation, satellite services and universal service in the information age. Volume III examines the structure within which modern communications companies operate and evolve, and how corporations must account for multiple objectives associated with both national economic and social policy. The volume draws useful lessons from the recent corporate experience of major international telecommunications companies. The contributors explore the interaction of diversity in national approaches with the continuing need for international cooperation and coordination, which continues to be an important area of debate. The Handbooksare written at a level intended for professional use by economists, advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and will also prove useful to policy analysts, engineers and managers within the industry.

The issue of costing and pricing in the telecommunications industry has been hotly debated for the last twenty years and we are still wrestling over the cost of the local exchange for access by interexchange and competitive local exchange carriers, as well as for universal service funding. With the advent of competition, the historical costing schemes had to change. Federal regulators wanted to ensure that monopoly rates did not subsidize competitive offerings. As a result, various costing methodologies were devised to allocate costs among the dominant carriers' services. The issue of costs can be summarized as two-fold: the quantitative determination of the level of costs and the proper attribution of those costs. Both are fraught with questions. The amount of costs, for instance, can vary from book costs to marginal costs. The attribution of costs can vary from those that are directly attributable to those that are joint and common. Hence, the need for costing theories and models. The industry is constantly in search of theories and models that more accurately reflect the underlying costs of service. It is in this light that the papers have been compiled for The New Investment Theory of Real Options in Telecommunications. Real options theory attempts to consider management's flexibility in valuation analysis and corrects the deficiencies of the traditional discounted present-value and decision tree analyses. This book sets forth an introduction and overview of the subject, and then provides the reader with a primer on real options. The volume highlights the controversies that surround the application of real options in the telecommunications industry; however, the editors have effectively separated the issues of application from those of interpretation.