The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) has recently proposed a framework to assess the reasonableness of traffic management (TM) practices. This paper discusses BEREC's proposal from a network economic perspective focusing on the underlying concepts of congestion,...

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are an important determinant of productivity growth and innovation. This study examines the effects of sector regulation on innovation in telecommunications and related information industries. A typology of innovation processes in ICT industries...

This paper develops a structural model which allows estimating the impact of regulatory decisions looking for the setting of download-speed standards on market structure and performance. We characterize a setting under which quality standards improve both service quality and availability. As to...

In order to create incentives for Internet traffic providers not to discriminate with respect to certain applications on the basis of network capacity requirements, the concept of market driven network neutrality is introduced. Its basic characteristics are that all applications are bearing the...

This paper studies a model of the Internet broadband market as a platform in order to show how different pricing schemes from the so-called net neutrality may increased economic efficiency by allowing more investment of access providers and enhancing consumers surplus and social welfare.

The benefits of advanced information and communication services are increasingly dependent on the quality of the available connectivity. This paper examines the factors that influence the quality of fixed and mobile broadband access in OECD countries. Drawing on institutional economics, the...

The changing role of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard setting process from designing and implementing the best effort TCP/IP protocol as a universal standard towards a platform for dealing with the increasing need for variety in the design of a Quality of Service (QoS)...

This paper combines data from a government programme providing broadband access to primary schools in Ireland with survey microdata on schools', teachers' and pupils use of the internet to examine the links between public subsidies, classroom use of the internet and educational performance....

Technological progress allows Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to carry out network manage-ment practices in a discriminatory fashion without being detected by their customers. This creates an opportunity that providers will exploit this information asymmetry in an opportunistic way by blocking...

This paper provides evidence that superior mobile Internet infrastructure increases take-up of location-based online services. Using data from the largest German online platform for restaurant reviews, I find that upgrading the 2G network to 3G increases the number of restaurant reviews and the...