By integrating a communications system with the existing power grid, smart grids provide end-to-end connectivity. This enables all entities and components integrated in the electricity supply system to exchange information without knowing the network's structure. New services and applications...

This paper deals with the relationship between the traditional fixed-line, mobile and Voice over IP telephony in the EU.We estimate the supply and demand for fixed-line telephony using data on 25 EU member states for the 2006:Q2 - 2011:Q4 period. Employing instrumental variable approach, we...

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,...

For many years electronic communications has been one of the most important areas of policy intervention for the European Union. Liberalisation and privatisation of the telecommunications industry have been very important topics of the policy debate in the two decades starting from 1990 to 2010....

Competition policy attempts to address the potential for market failure by encouraging competition in service markets. Often, in wireless communication service markets, national regulatory authorities seek to encourage entry via the spectrum assignment process. Instruments used include the...

This paper discusses the relevant cost standard for the economic replicability test for Next-Generation Access (NGA) networks, described in the Recommendation on Costing and Non-discrimination adopted by the European Commission. We demonstrate that a cost standard that implies fully fixed and...

The development of the broadband market is a key aspect of the economic and social growth of a country. However, despite the importance and the development of broadband market in Portugal in recent years, especially with the explosion of the number of mobile broadband accesses, the studies for...

This paper empirically analyzes the relationship between asymmetric regulation on mobile termination rates and mobile retail prices, using panel data collected from 20 OECD member countries for 22 quarters. In addition to the asymmetry of mobile access charges, the authors also focus on the...

We study the implementation of reasonably efficient operator margin squeeze tests by National Regulatory Authorities in European telecommunications markets. We provide a theoretical framework in which we show how regulatory authorities deal with the asymmetries between the entrants and the...

In this paper, we study the adjustments made by National Regulatory Authorities to simple margin squeeze tests, in order to model a reasonably efficient operator. More precisely, by inspecting the possible differences between an entrant and an incumbent that would cause a market disadvantage for...