Customer switching costs can limit the opportunities for new entry in some markets. Incumbent firms may be able to reduce these switching costs, but have no incentive to do so without regulatory intervention. For example, in telecommunications, incumbent firms can provide customers with number...

This paper analyses price structures in the liberalized German market for long-distance telecommunications services. Theoretically deduced patterns are backed-up by empirical observations. The market is exceptionally competitive; entry is taking place on a large scale and prices are falling...

A model of competition between two interconnected cellular networks is presented which shows the effects of cellular termination charges on competition and market penetration in the cellular sector. We show that the determination of cellular termination charges is quite different to standard...

We study a retail benchmarking approach to determine access prices for interconnected networks. Instead of considering fixed access charges as in the existing literature, we study access pricing rules that determine the access price that network i pays to network j as a linear function of the...

In this paper, I consider a general and informational efficient approach to determine the optimal access rule and show that there exists a simple rule that achieves the Ramsey outcome as the unique equilibrium when networks compete in linear prices without network-based price discrimination. My...

We study a retail benchmarking approach to determine access prices for interconnected networks. Instead of considering fixed access charges as in the existing literature, we study access pricing rules that determine the access price that network i pays to network j as a linear function of the...

The paper develops a framework for Internet backbone competition. In the absence of direct payments between websites and consumers, the access charge allocates communication costs between websites and consumers and affects the volume of traffic. The paper analyzes the impact of the access charge...

This paper examines the effects of various price-cap rules on peakload pricing. The issue recently gains practical importance in regulated network industries. The formal approach reveals that efficiency properties of various price-cap rules are, notwithstanding some problems, fairly good. A...