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Speeding up the internet: regulation and investment in European fiber optic infrastructure

TL;DR: In this article, the authors study how the coexistence of access regulations for legacy and fiber networks shapes the incentives to invest in network infrastructure and develop a theoretical model explaining investment incentives by incumbent telecom operators and heterogeneous entrants and test its main predictions using panel data from 27 EU member states over the last decade.
Abstract: In this paper we study how the coexistence of access regulations for legacy (copper) and fiber networks shapes the incentives to invest in network infrastructure. To this end, we develop a theoretical model explaining investment incentives by incumbent telecom operators and heterogeneous entrants and test its main predictions using panel data from 27 EU member states over the last decade. Our theoretical model extends the existing literature by, among other things, allowing for heterogeneous entrants in internet access markets, as we consider both other telecom and cable TV operators as entrants. In the empirical part, we use a novel data set including information on physical fiber network investments, legacy network access regulation and recently imposed fiber access regulations. Our main finding is that more stringent access regulations for both the legacy and the fiber networks harm investments by incumbent telecom operators, but, in line with our theoretical model, do not affect cable TV operators.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors build an empirical model that encompasses a complete ladder-of-investment, composed of three rungs: bitstream access, local loop unbundling and new access facilities.
Abstract: In the telecommunications industry, the ladder-of-investment approach claims that service-based competition (when entrants lease access to incumbents’ facilities) can serve as a “stepping stone” for facility-based entry (when entrants build their own infrastructures to provide services). In this paper, we build an empirical model that encompasses a complete ladder-of-investment, composed of three rungs: bitstream access, local loop unbundling and new access facilities. Using data from the European Commission’s “Broadband access in the EU” reports covering 15 European member states for 17 semesters, we test the ladder-of-investment hypothesis. We find no empirical support for this hypothesis, that is, for the transition from local loop unbundling to new access infrastructures, and weak empirical support for the transition from bitstream access lines to local loop unbundling. These results are robust when we take into account the migration effect, the number of access rungs, the development of broadband cable, the regulatory performance, and the evolution of local loop unbundling prices. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

92 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors review the existing literature on ultra-fast, fiber-based broadband network, devoting special attention to the results and to the methodology used in the most recent studies.

47 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the economic benefits of high-speed broadband within and across neighboring counties in Germany were assessed using a balanced panel dataset of 401 German counties with data from 2010 to 2015 as well as different panel estimation techniques.

19 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The determinants of individuals' private access (away from work) to the Internet with the smartphone through a mobile broadband connection are explored, focusing on the role played by Internet uses and taking into account the availability of a fixed broadband connection at home.
Abstract: The literature on broadband policies has been focusing on the possible role of mobile broadband as a means for addressing geographical digital divide in areas with no or inadequate fixed broadband infrastructure coverage. Broadband plans designed by most of the industrialized countries take the substitutability between fixed and mobile technologies for granted, with restrictions essentially relating only to bandwidth performance. We explore the determinants of individuals' private access (away from work) to the Internet with the smartphone through a mobile broadband connection, focusing on the role played by Internet uses and taking into account the availability of a fixed broadband connection at home. The results of our econometric exercise, carried out on microdata referred to Italian individuals, provide original and interesting evidence: a complementarity effect between mobile and fixed broadband is found for browsing, video streaming, gaming and cloud services; a substitution effect emerges for social networking and music streaming. Such increasing complexity of individuals’ broadband usage patterns should be acknowledged in the way broadband coverage is mapped and policies designed, adopting a more ecosystem-oriented approach which integrates supply- and demand-side features. A first step in this direction is the inclusion of some, so far neglected, key-attributes of the demand (data traffic allowance, latency, ease of interconnection with Internet capable devices) among the relevant dimensions of policy design.

18 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
Ingo Vogelsang1
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the EECC's new policy goal of investment in very high capacity connectivity could actually lead to policies that end in sustainable infrastructure competition, and characterizes the EU's gatekeeper policies on call terminations and net neutrality.

17 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator optimally exploits all the linear moment restrictions that follow from the assumption of no serial correlation in the errors, in an equation which contains individual effects, lagged dependent variables and no strictly exogenous variables.
Abstract: This paper presents specification tests that are applicable after estimating a dynamic model from panel data by the generalized method of moments (GMM), and studies the practical performance of these procedures using both generated and real data. Our GMM estimator optimally exploits all the linear moment restrictions that follow from the assumption of no serial correlation in the errors, in an equation which contains individual effects, lagged dependent variables and no strictly exogenous variables. We propose a test of serial correlation based on the GMM residuals and compare this with Sargan tests of over-identifying restrictions and Hausman specification tests.

26,580 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, observations on N cross-section units at T time points are used to estimate a simple statistical model involving an autoregressive process with an additive term specific to the unit.
Abstract: Observations on N cross-section units at T time points are used to estimate a simple statistical model involving an autoregressive process with an additive term specific to the unit. Different assumptions about the initial conditions are (a) initial state fixed, (b) initial state random, (c) the unobserved individual effect independent of the unobserved dynamic process with the initial value fixed, and (d) the unobserved individual effect independent of the unobserved dynamic process with initial value random. Asymptotic properties of the maximum likelihood and “covariance” estimators are obtained when T → ∞ and when N → ∞. The relationship between the pseudo and conditional maximum likelihood estimators is clarified. A simple consistent estimator that is independent of the initial conditions and the way in which T or N → ∞ is also suggested.

2,372 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate how telecommunications infrastructure affects economic growth and find evidence of a significant positive causal link, especially when a critical mass of telecommunications infrastructure is present, in 21 OECD countries over a twenty-year period.
Abstract: This paper investigates how telecommunications infrastructure affects economic growth. This issue is important and has received considerable attention in the popular press concerning the creation of the 'information superhighway' and its potential impacts on the economy. We use evidence from 21 OECD countries over a twenty-year period to examine the impacts that telecommunications developments may have had. We estimate a structural model, which endogenizes telecommunication investment by specifying a micro-model of supply and demand for telecommunication investments. The micro-model is then jointly estimated with the macro-growth equation. After controlling for country-specific fixed effects, we find evidence of a significant positive causal link, especially when a critical mass of telecommunications infrastructure is present. Interestingly, the critical mass appears to be at a level of telecommunications infrastructure that is near universal service.

1,257 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors estimate the effect of broadband infrastructure, which enables high-speed internet, on economic growth in the panel of OECD countries in 1996-2007, and find that a 10 percentagepoint increase in broadband penetration raises annual per-capita growth by 0.9-1.5 percentage points.
Abstract: We estimate the effect of broadband infrastructure, which enables high-speed internet, on economic growth in the panel of OECD countries in 1996-2007. Our instrumental-variable model derives its non-linear first stage from a logistic diffusion model where pre-existing voice-telephony and cable-TV networks predict maximum broadband penetration. We find that a 10 percentage-point increase in broadband penetration raises annual per-capita growth by 0.9-1.5 percentage points. Results are robust to country and year fixed effects and controlling for linear second-stage effects of our instruments. We verify that our instruments predict broadband penetration but not diffusion of contemporaneous technologies like mobile telephony and computers.

767 citations