Maintaining across-the-board restrictions is socially and economically costly, has adverse distributional impacts, and is poorly targeted in terms of protecting health and health care provision. Instead a win–win ‘Coasean’ social contract could be forged to protect older people and other...

This paper considers the development of digital platforms, their economic role and the policy approach which should apply to them. Digital platforms are heterogeneous, so no flavour of ‘platform regulation' is likely to be appropriate across all platforms, whilst horizontal laws apply to...

This paper explores a bootstrap modelling approach to estimating the value of mobile, spectrum and data demand. A mobile data forecast is not required, since data growth is modelled endogenously. The approach also dispenses with the notion of a “spectrum crunch” since data demand responds to...

The reallocation of radio spectrum to valuable new and emerging technologies and services is essential to achieving the next wave of productivity and consumer benefits driven by ICT. Currently spectrum is not allocated to the most valuable uses, particularly the large amount of spectrum held for...

The assessment of future mobile data and spectrum demand is an important policy and business strategy question. The orthodox approach to these linked questions starts from a mobile data traffic projection to infer spectrum demand and value. However, future mobile data demand is uncertain, and...

There have been moves towards greater reliance on market mechanisms for spectrum management – auctions, trading, private band management and leasing – in North America, the EU and a number of other countries. Alongside these developments, regulators have applied administratively determined...

Communications networks are undergoing a transition from copper to fibre, from 2G and 3G to LTE and from switched to IP. Where ex ante regulation applies transition involves particular challenges and trade-offs that differ from those applying to relatively stable pre-existing infrastructure. The...

A number of behavioural observations point to a preference and willingness to pay for communications technologies that support mobile and nomadic use. This paper considers these observations and the implications for the evolution of mobile and fixed networks. It then considers whether there are...

This paper considers a central issue in telecommunications regulation. What rules, if any, should regulators put in place to provide incentives for timely and efficient investment in NGA while, at the same time, preventing monopoly abuse - either by taking monopoly rents from end users or...