Related papers: Prospects for Improving Competition in Mobile Roam…
We consider a simple two-player game involving a large incumbent and small entrant into a cellular wireless access provider marketplace. The entrant's customers must pay roaming charges. We assume that the roaming charges are regulated,…
This paper examines the relationship between changes in telecommunications provider concentration on international long distance routes and changes in prices on those routes. Overall, decreased concentration is associated with significantly…
Recent communications environment significantly expand the mobile environment. Prepaid mobile services for 3G networks enables telecommunication to sign up new users by utilizing the latest in converged billing technologies. The worldwide…
This paper examines the effects of licensing conditions, in particular of spectrum fees, on the pricing and diffusion of mobile communications services. Seemingly exorbitant sums paid for 3G licenses in the UK, Germany in 2000 and similarly…
A smartphone user's personal hotspot (pH) allows him to share cellular connection to another (e.g., a traveler) in the vicinity, but such sharing consumes the limited data quota in his two-part tariff plan and may lead to overage charge.…
Do switching costs reduce or intensify price competition in markets where firms charge the same price to old and new consumers? Theoretically, the answer could be either "yes" or "no," due to two opposing incentives in firms' pricing…
Mobile traffic explosion causes spectrum shortage and polarization of data usage among users, which will eventually decrease user welfare in mobile communication services. Governments around the world are planning to make more spectrum…
The traditional model of single ownership of all the physical network elements and network layers by mobile network operators is beginning to be challenged. This has been attributed to the rapid and complex technology migration compounded…
Mobile commerce is enabling the development of additional revenue streams for organizations through the delivery of chargeable mobile services. According to the European Information Technology Observatory, the total amount of revenue…
The growing competition drives the mobile network operators (MNOs) to explore adding time flexibility to the traditional data plan, which consists of a monthly subscription fee, a data cap, and a per-unit fee for exceeding the data cap. The…
The rapid spread of mobile phones means that the number of mobile users may already exceed the number of banked people in many low income countries. Mobile phones can also offer a communications channel for initiating and executing on-line…
This paper investigates the incentives of mobile network operators (MNOs) for acquiring additional spectrum to offer mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) and thereby inviting competition for a common pool of end users (EUs). We consider…
Telecom industry is significantly evolving all over the globe than ever. Mobile users number is increasing remarkably. Telecom operators are investing to get more users connected and to improve user experience, however, they are facing…
This paper analyzes two pricing schemes commonly used in WiFi markets: the flat-rate and the usage-based pricing. The flat-rate pricing encourages the maximum usage, while the usage-based pricing can flexibly attract more users especially…
We consider a wireless services market where a set of operators compete for a large common pool of users. The latter have a reservation utility of U0 units or, equivalently, an alternative option to satisfy their communication needs. The…
ISPs are increasingly selling "tiered" contracts, which offer Internet connectivity to wholesale customers in bundles, at rates based on the cost of the links that the traffic in the bundle is traversing. Although providers have already…
Traditional cellular service was designed for global connectivity, but business and logistical constraints led to its fragmentation, with deployments limited to individual countries and regions. Initiatives like Mobile Virtual Network…
Consumers only discover at the first seller which product best fits their needs, then check its price online, then decide on buying. Switching sellers is costly. Equilibrium prices fall in the switching cost, eventually to the monopoly…
Indoor cell phone users often suffer from poor connectivity. One promising solution, femtocell technology, has been rapidly developed and deployed over the past few years. One of the biggest challenges for femtocell deployment is lack of a…
We propose a model of incentives for data pricing in large mobile networks, in which an operator wishes to balance the number of connections (active users) of different classes of users in the different cells and at different time instants,…