Nepal lags comparable countries in Asia, in part due to civil unrest and constant changes in government. There has been little resolve to implement policies and few incentives to do so. An operator partly belonging to a son-in-law of the King was favoured, until the monarchy ceased. Spectrum for...

In cases of “bill shock” customers receive invoices from hundred to tens of thousands of Euro for use of mobile broadband when abroad. The EU Roaming Regulation requires operators to protect customers by providing prices and managing their monthly spending limit. In the USA, the FCC has an...

Climate change is recognized by both the African and European Unions as a significant challenge in terms of mitigation and adaptation, requiring technological advances and transfers. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are believed to contribute around 2.5% of global emissions of...

The European Commission reported on the implementation of the current Roaming II Regulation and proposed the Roaming III Regulation to run until 2022. This combined wholesale and retail price caps for voice, SMS and data (the retail data price cap being new). It also proposed the introduction of...

The European Commission has proposed its third Roaming Regulation to cap the prices charged for international mobile roaming, to ensure transparency of prices and to eliminate the risk of "bill shock". The present proposal would come into force in 2012 and extends until 2022. It adds a price cap...

Report on a conference reviewing the state of play of the European Union's second Roaming Regulation and consideration of options for a legislative successor. A number of possible structural remedies were rejected in favour of the existing model of retail and wholesale price caps, with a...

Corruption has long been endemic in Indian telecommunications. Individuals and small contractors must pay bribes or "facilitation fees" to obtain a fixed line or to release a payment for a contract or, even, a pension. Investigation of complaints about the government and state-owned operators...

Despite strong traditions of research into corruption and into telecommunications policy and regulation, the two are almost never combined, an absence that remains unexplained. One possibility is that it is “dangerous” in terms of physical harm, financial harm from defamation law suits or...

The growth of Internet access enabled the creation of functions (e.g., e-commerce and search) that were initially convenient but which a small number of firms used to achieve winner-takes-all, through the application of ICTs, network externalities and two-sided markets. They turned themselves...

Once again the issue of a plebiscite for the independence of Scotland is being discussed. The likely effects of independence on the telecommunications sector have previously been analysed, but need both to be reconsidered and to be subjected to debate and parliamentary scrutiny. Necessarily, it...