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This paper estimates the empirical relationship between concentration in mobile carriers' holdings of radio spectrum and the performance of the U.S. wireless industry. Reduced-form regressions that use a 2012–2013 cross-section of approximately 700 Cellular Market Areas reveal a robust inverted-U relationship between spectrum HHIs and subscriber penetration rates—a measure of consumer welfare. The marginal effect of spectrum concentration is positive throughout the range of sampled markets—contrary to the conventional concentration-performance hypothesis. This pattern persists when spectrum concentration is separately measured for bands below 1 GHz and for rural areas. It is also shown not to be biased by the potential endogeneity of spectrum HHIs. This paper is distinguished by relating subscriber penetration rates to the quality and coverage of operator networks that supports efficiency explanations for operator size, and hence the benefits of structural concentration. These findings cast doubt on federal policies adopted as early as the 1927 Radio Act that attempt to equalize ownership of spectrum. Instead, our empirical results recommend measures that promote investment in wireless infrastructure and other non-spectrum factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically examines the factors broadband users take into account when choosing their fixed broadband access mode in Slovenia. The conditional logit model was employed incorporating the survey data. The results reveal that the socioeconomic characteristics of users (age, education, gender, presence of student/pupil in the household, living in the city, subscription to TV services, and preferences for speed) influence the choice between different broadband access modes. Contrary to our expectations, access mode characteristics (the price, the download speed) have no statistically significant impact on the choice of the broadband access mode. This may be attributed to the intense price competition among different broadband technologies resulting in the price convergence and behavior of users, which tend to use the internet mainly for basic services. The results of the analysis may hold important implications for internet service providers when identifying appropriate strategies to attract customers to subscribe to their broadband technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the contribution of modern communication infrastructure characterized by high speed broadband access network on the productivity growth, production structure and factor demands for US industries and for the aggregate economy. To evaluate such contribution, we modify the traditional cost function by incorporating communication infrastructure as input in production process in conjunction with other public infrastructures. The network externality and spillover effect of broadband access technology are captured by introducing broadband penetration rate as a shift factor in industry level production function. Empirical results show that the increased use of modern communications infrastructure increases the productivity of all industries with wide variations across industries. Estimated impacts on input demands show that increase in use of communications infrastructure service saves labor and materials and increase the demand for private capital. Finally, aggregate social rate of return on such investment has been estimated for policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diffusion and adoption of modern information technology provide new chance for China to close urban-rural income gap. This paper uses China's provincial panel data from 2002 to 2013 to investigate the effect of computer penetration on rural residents' income. A public program aiming to connect every village with broadband Internet and other rural facilities provides plausibly exogenous variation in rural residents' availability and adoption of the broadband Internet, which is used to explore the instrument variable for rural computer penetration. The results show that rural computer penetration tends to increase rural residents' income over time, but the average effect remains limited. The dynamic panel threshold effects model, which allows for both the threshold variable and other covariates to be endogenous, is further used to explore the constraints of the income-increase effect of rural computer penetration. It shows that the effect is at least doubled over the average effect estimated from instrument variables method, once the digital divide causes are removed. Our findings have important implications for the government to increase rural residents' income and reduce urban-rural income gap by encouraging rural computer usage and removing the digital divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While second-degree price discrimination is standard in commercial practice in many industries, consumer advocates and public interest groups have reacted with skepticism to tendencies to move away from flat rates and introduce greater tariff diversity. This paper uses time-series data to provide an empirical analysis of how the differentiation of broadband tariffs with respect to retail prices affects fixed broadband subscription. The empirical analysis is based on a unique dataset of 10,200 retail broadband offers spanning the 2003-2011 period and including 23 EU member states. Results show that an increase in tariff diversity provides a significant impetus to broadband adoption, wherefore demands by several public interest groups to limit price discrimination in broadband markets should be viewed with some caution as reduced price discrimination may come at the cost of lower penetration rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article conjectures that the legacy industry-specific regulation that has governed the telecommunications sector for a long time is in basic conflict with the dynamics and product innovations that characterize the modern information and communications technology (ICT) sector. Reasons for the failure of legacy regulation to promote product innovations are explained and proposals for alternatives, such as deregulation and regulatory reform are discussed. Both regulation and competition policy are more difficult for ICT than for other sectors. Therefore both, regulation and competition policy may need reforms in order to deal with new problems. The most drastic and most realistic alternative to legacy-type regulation remains deregulation and a move to competition policy. Symmetric regulation, smart regulation, quasi-Coasean approaches and subsidies all have some limited applicability to specific situations, but are all associated with complications that have to be resolved, while competition policy is a comprehensive alternative. Last-mile access and gatekeeper access are analyzed as two main areas of legacy regulation, which are in danger of being exported to other ICT areas. Such exports may negatively affect the dynamics of the ICT industry. Rather than being exported, legacy regulations should be reduced in order to enhance product innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes mobile broadband plan prices in 37 countries between 2011 and 2014. Mobile network operators typically commercialize usage-based plans that include an access fee, a usage allowance (number of GB included in the tariff plan), and a penalty system should consumers exceed the contracted allowance. Our empirical model shows that the prices of these plans are lower than those of unlimited contracts, and that they depend on the type of penalty that is used. The prices also reflect service characteristics, including the technology provided, the download speed, and telephone call allowances. Plans that bundle mobile broadband plans with smartphone devices have longer contract duration and may be more expensive than plans that only include a SIM card. Specifically, broadband service plans are priced higher when they include an iPhone or a Samsung smartphone. The paper also discusses the impact of market structure and entry regulation on prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The internet is one of the most pervasive technological innovations in human history. While it is a double-edged sword, its implications for human dignity, privacy, protection and development are complicated, under-researched and weakly understood. It is against this background that this article examined the cybercrime phenomenon (yahoo yahoo in the local context) which has been on the rise in Nigeria and Africa since the last decade. This article is to empirically examine the real interface of science, technological innovations and development as it affects human dignity through African case study. The article examined the cybercrime phenomenon among youth in the Ibadan metropolis of South-western Nigeria with human dignity and development perspective. Both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection and data analysis were adopted. Important findings were made and useful conclusions/recommendations were made to enhance the sustainability of technological innovations, human dignity and development in Africa and other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that, to survive in increasingly competitive mobile phone markets, mobile phone service providers should develop marketing strategies that not only address immediate marketing needs of short-term profitability, but also emphasise developing lifelong customers. Although this approach might negatively affect short-term profits, these, however, can be compensated in the long-run. In this paper, we posit that long-run marketing success is a function of how a service provider attracts and maintains customers over sustained periods. A sample of South African Generation Y mobile phone subscribers was studied with a view to identifying factors leading to lifelong patronage to a service provider. Contrary to past findings that suggest subscribers migrate permanently from one operator to a competitor, this study provides two new insights. Firstly, although subscriber migration across mobile networks was observed, it is not as widespread as earlier thought; and more importantly it is not permanent. Movement across networks on the part of subscribers is a strategy to enhance their satisfaction by complementing services from different operators. The findings of the paper mostly apply to African and other emerging markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Net neutrality is hotly debated among both scholars and politicians for more than a decade already, but it's still one of the most prominent topics in telecommunications policy. This paper reviews the recent economic literature on net neutrality following an introductory discussion of relevant features of the market for Internet service provision. In the course of doing so, multiple regulatory regimes are evaluated with respect to their economic impact. Albeit the economic literature highlights some dangers that can evolve from violations of net neutrality, there is little evidence that would justify a rigorous ex-ante regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of businesses in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector face decision-making problems on a daily basis. Most of these problems are based on contexts of uncertainty, where decisions are founded on qualitative information which may be imprecise or perception-based. In these cases, the information which is expressed by experts and users of evaluated services can be treated using processes of computing with words (CW). In this paper, we present a hybrid decision-making model especially designed for the ICT sector whereby the experts have the support of an intelligent system which provides information about the opinions of users related to those problems which are to be analysed. These opinions are obtained by using different mechanisms and techniques when users conduct business with the service provider. In addition, we employ a procedure for obtaining consensus between experts which enriches and strengthens the decision-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines how recent trends in the smartphone industry may be expanding previous conceptions of the industry and its boundaries. The increasing importance of Internet and cloud-based services-which in many ways lie outside the control of the physical device, operating system, and even the cellular network-seems to be changing the roles and strategies of key firms in the ecosystem. Using industry architecture and platform theory, we examine how the key firms seem to be reacting to these new changes. Our analysis indicates that the platform 'bottleneck,' or key control point, is moving away from the device and into the cloud, where a new meta-platform based on the Internet may be emerging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the concept of Informational Cities, which are the highly developed prototypical cities of the 21st century, we conducted a regional comparison of four Japanese cities in terms of their 'cityness' and 'informativeness'. The purpose of our articles is to specify the theoretical framework for measuring the informativeness and cityness level of any desired city, to quantify the chosen indicators in order to compare the investigated cities, and finally, to conclude what is their advancement level in terms of a modern city of the knowledge society. Our methodology is based on a new approach to measure the position of a city in a national or a global scale, originating from information science and its indicators of the knowledge society. It includes such procedures as desktop research and bibliometrics, ethnographic field study, or grounded theory method. The investigated aspects under the notion of the informativeness level are the distinct labour market and mix of companies located in the city (concerned with creative, knowledge and information economy), as well as the progressive e-governance and advanced e-government. The notion of cityness level oscillates around the concept of space of flows in the city, including the flow of money, power, information, and human capital. In order to make our model practical and grounded on available evidence, we have chosen four Japanese cities to undergo the process. Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka and Kyoto are big and economically significant Japanese metropolises. However, our results show that they differ from each other regarding many important aspects. We were able to quantify their performances and create a ranking. The limitation of our approach appears to be the strict quantification method that makes the cityness and informativeness levels of the cities dependent on other cities' performances, and that does not precisely reflect the actual dimension of the differences between them. Hence, in the future work we will develop a more flexible and independent approach, enabling us to make more accurate statements on cities' advancement unregarded the advancement level of the other metropolises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The positive effects of broadband networks and services on productivity and economic growth are well established. Looking at broadband as an engine of economic prosperity, the OECD and its member states are seeking to foster its widespread adoption. However, which public policies best promote the adoption of broadband remains controversial. This article contributes in two ways to this discussion. It offers a comprehensive discussion of the factors that influence broadband adoption and uses an econometric approach that is well-suited to overcome the challenges of modelling broadband adoption. This framework allows drawing more robust and nuanced policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to identify factors that influence the potential demand for m-government service adoption in Japan by analysing survey responses. This study identifies smartphone ownership, mobile application activity and e-government subscription as demand drivers. These results suggest government should encourage Juki cards and the e-tax payment system adoption and support programmes to encourage smartphone ownership and mobile application subscriptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like other service sectors, information technology has dramatically altered the growth and character of the retail trade sector in the affluent economies. Nevertheless, significant variation exists in the typical strategies of retail firms in different countries. This article explores this variation and proposes an explanation for why retailers achieved scale and solved their make, buy, and partner decisions along such different trajectories. It argues that national bases for scale retailing were shaped by a series of political negotiations starting in the 1960s and 1970s. This demonstrates once again that technology implementation is rarely determined by the technology itself, but more often by social and political rules. Future technology platforms, such as web-based or mobile commerce, should be expected to follow similar political logics. As multinational retailing firms spread around the globe, this has important implications for national competition policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cloud Computing is rapidly emerging as the new information technology platform. It is, however, much more than simply a new set of technologies and business models. Cloud Computing is transforming how consumers, companies, and governments store information, how they process that information, and how they utilize computing power. It can be an engine of innovation, a platform for entrepreneurship, and driver of corporate efficiency. While an increasingly commonly term, confusion remains over what exactly constitutes Cloud Computing, how the markets are unfolding, and what forces will drive their evolution and diffusion. This paper provides an overview and conceptual tools for business leaders, policymakers, and non-specialist scholars to identify, distill, and easily understand the core aspects of how Cloud Computing service markets are developing, and how an array of policy issues will influence how this new computing platform unfolds across the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the launch of the original iPhone, Apple redefined the 'smartphone' product category and accelerated the convergence of traditional mobile telephony, Internet services, and personal computing into a new industry. As these sectors merge into a single device, formerly separate industry architectures and their constituent firms are being forced into direct competition. We test theories of industry architecture and technological platforms regarding their ability to explain the strategies of key entrants in navigating the transition. We analyze in detail the actions and strategies of four major competitors, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, and, more briefly, Research in Motion and HP/Palm, from the framework of technological platform theory. Our analysis suggests that currently some competitors are following traditional platform strategies, but that Google and Apple appear to have adopted strategies at odds with platform literature. We examine how the dynamics of this convergence may lead to a reconsideration of certain tenets of platform theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether the firms that supply Internet hardware and software should face restrictions on the use of their property is an important and controversial policy issue. Advocates of 'net neutrality'-including President Obama and the current FCC majority-believe that owners of broadband distribution systems (hardware used to distribute Internet and video services) and producers of certain 'must-have' video content should be subject to prophylactic regulation that transcends present-day antitrust law enforcement. In the economic terms that are used in debates on competition policy, the concern is with vertical integration that may give firms both the opportunity (through denial of access or price discrimination) and incentive (increased profit) to restrict competition. This paper's central point is that virtually every production process in the economy is vertically integrated, and economics predicts changes in the extent of vertical integration-that is, changes in the boundaries of the firm-in response to changes in relative prices, technology, or institutions. Both vertical integration and changes in the extent of vertical integration are benign characteristics of efficient, dynamic, competitive markets. While there is no shortage of theoretical models in which vertical integration may be harmful, most such models have restrictive assumptions and ambiguous welfare predictions-even when market power is assumed to be present. Empirical evidence that vertical integration or vertical restraints are harmful is weak, compared to evidence that vertical integration is beneficial-again, even in cases where market power appears to be present. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that prophylactic regulation is not necessary, and may well reduce welfare. Sound policy is to wait for ex post evidence of harm to justify interventions in specific cases. Net neutrality, recently enacted by the FCC but subject to judicial review, is an unfortunate idea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This papers aims to identify and explain the differences in information and communications technologies (ICT) adoption for a sample of 142 developed and developing countries. In addition, we examine the relationships between specific combinations of technologies and the factors explaining them. Although income is a key factor for all country groups, its role is more significant for middle-digitalization countries. Using several multivariate techniques, we detect different patterns of digitalization. The patterns are explained to differing degrees by the type of country, by differences in economic development, and by socio-demographic and institutional variables. Factors such as quality of regulation and infrastructure explain ICT adoption in high-income countries. The ICT combination associated with specific income groups as well as the explanatory variables detected for each of them might be useful to implement the most appropriate policy actions to reduce the digital divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the demand for mobile telephones including second generation (2G) and third generation (3G) by using a discrete choice model called a mixed logit model. First, we examine the substitution patterns of the demand for mobile telephones and show that demand substitutability among alternatives is stronger within the provider nest category than within the standard nest category in mobile telephone services. The closest substitute for NTT’s 3G service is NTT’s 2G service, rather than KDDI’s 3G service, for example. Second, we investigate the elasticities of demand for various functions including e-mail, Web browsing, and moving picture delivery. Consequently, we cannot observe marked differences between 2G and 3G services based on these calculated elasticities, indicating that it takes time for 3G subscribers to gain proficiency with such new services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]