Regulators have long been aware of the social aspects of communication. In the past, regulated monopolists have provided Universal Service Obligations, typically funded via a system of cross-subsidies. In this paper, we first review the rationale for imposing Universal Service Obligations, based...

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the impact of vertical unbundling on German electric utilities. Our research mainly relies on in-depth interviews with sector-experts from the German utilities. We will discuss both short-term changes and the long-term impact on competition in the...