This paper examines the effects of the introduction of mobile number portability (MNP) using data from Uruguay. MNP allows customers to switch mobile providers while retaining their phone number, thereby reducing switching costs and potentially enhancing competition. Our analysis reveals that...

Can digital information and communication technology (ICT) foster mass political mobilization? We use a novel geo-referenced dataset for the entire African continent between 1998 and 2012 on the coverage of mobile phone signal together with geo-referenced data from multiple sources on the...

This paper examines the consequences of introducing mobile number portability (MNP). As MNP allows consumers to keep their telephone number when switching providers, it reduces consumers’ switching costs. However, MNP may also cause consumer ignorance if telephone numbers no longer identify...

The importance of connectivity is growing across the world as the need for access to information and communication technologies is becoming more important for economic development. This paper presents the concept of the connectivity frontier as the expected achievable level of commercially...

Radio spectrum represents a scarce resource assigned to operators by national regulatory authorities through auctions, beauty contests or other mechanisms, aimed at introducing sufficient incentives for an optimal use of such a resource. A prerequisite for designing efficient assignment methods...

Satellite communication is integral to Digital India, enabling ubiquitous broadband for the uncovered population and supporting satellite TV, the dominant source of infotainment. An enabling policy environment would help increase the market share of Indian satellite service providers from the...

We develop a model of international roaming in which mobile network operators (MNOs) compete both on the wholesale market to sell roaming services to foreign operators and on the retail market for subscribers. The operators own a network infrastructure only in their home country. To allow their...

Farmers in developing countries often lack access to timely and reliable information about modern technologies that are essential to improve agricultural productivity. The recent diffusion of mobile phones has the potential to overcome these barriers by making information available to those...