Economic analysis of spectrum allocation policies focuses on competitive bidding for wireless licenses. Auctions generating high bids, as in Germany and the UK, are identified as successful, while those producing lower receipts, as in Switzerland and the Netherlands, are deemed fiascoes. Yet,...

In the last year, many advocates have called for the imposition of Carterfone regulation on the wireless industry. The FCC partially heeded this call when it imposed open platform regulations on one substantial block of spectrum (the Upper C block) that was recently part of the record-setting...

The radio spectrum that governments license to mobile operators is central to the quality and affordability of mobile broadband services. However, some government policies – inadvertently or not – result in high prices being paid to access spectrum. This empirical study assesses whether high...

The digital dividend is the amount of spectrum that is freed up by the switch over from analogue TV to digital terrestrial TV in the UHF band. Drawing from a research project (Braulke et al. 2010) commissioned by the Austrian regulator RTR, this article prioritizes, analyses and evaluates the...

Sub-Saharan Africa ranks among the top regions in terms of growth in the number of mobile phone users. The success of mobile telephony is attributed to the opening of markets for private players and lenient regulatory policy. However, markets may be increasingly saturated and new regulations...

The digital dividend is the amount of spectrum that is freed up by the switch over from analogue TV to digital terrestrial TV in the UHF band. Drawing from a research project (Braulke et al. 2010) commissioned by the Austrian regulator RTR, this article prioritizes, analyses and evaluates the...

This paper investigates whether the growth of cell telephony in Brazil after privatization is taking place at the expense of the fixed telephony. We use national household surveys and find that first, despite the rapid growth in cell telephony, complementarity between both types of telephony is...

Since the inception of telecom reform in 1994, structural reform has been a main thread surrounding the course of the development of China's telecommunications industry. In structuring the 2008 reform and the 2009 3G rollout China's government adopted a relatively balanced approach in the hope...

Sub-Saharan Africa ranks among the top regions in terms of growth in the number of mobile phone users. The success of mobile telephony is attributed to the opening of markets for private players and lenient regulatory policy. However, markets may be increasingly saturated and new regulations...

We examine the effect on economic growth of mobile cellular phones in sub-Saharan Africa where a marked asymmetry is present between land-line penetration and mobile telecommunications expansion. This study extends previous ones along two important dimensions. First, we allow for the potential...