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The commercial potential of wireless applications has brought spectrum policies to the forefront of regulatory arena. The visibility of the telecom sector and the prior experience of 3G licensing in Europe and UK have made several Asian regulators and policy makers wary of using auctions. This paper details out the beauty contest approach adopted b...
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Soon after the Hong Kong Government changeover in 1997, the IT industry could have created substantial revenues for the Government and business sectors alike, and also somewhat rescued the economy following the collapse of the housing market. However, the use of royalties instead of an auction for four 3G licences scuppered this opportunity.
This study empirically examines a sample of national wireless spectrum assignments for the period 2000-2007 to identify the sources of revenue variations. An econometric model that recognises the censored nature of the sample relates per capita winning bid (per Mhz) values to auction design variables (license award process), national and mobile mar...
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... The process involved submitting an application, getting public comments on the application, getting responses from the applicants regarding the comment, before NTC made a decision following this process. Applicants were evaluated along three criteria: track record, rollout plan, and their schedule rates for their services (Jain 2007). ...
In India, like in many other developing countries, the abysmal performance of the state-owned telecommunications service provider and the increasing requirement to attract capital for the upgrading the sector were the major drivers for liberalization. At the macro level after enshrining policy in a closed centralized economic model based on import substitution for almost four decades, India made a structural shift to a market-oriented model in the early 1980s. This shift in policy and the associated institutional arrangements also had an impact on the telecommunications industry. India faced many difficult challenges in liberalizing its telecommunications industry from a monopoly to a decentralized competitive model. During monopoly era, telephone was not considered as a necessity, and, as a result, telephone penetration levels were very low and the quality of service was poor. However, long-waiting lists, technological advancement and pressure from various domestic and international stakeholders pushed the government to initiate reforms in middle of 1980's to spread telephone infrastructure.Telecom reforms in India allowed for private entry but did not entail privatization of the incumbent erstwhile monopoly service providers. Market liberalization accompanied with the introduction of new laws and regulations was the cornerstone of reform. Regulatory agencies and regulation have become integral components of the telecom reform process, in order to protect consumers, reassure investors and, in theory, help advance competition.The results of liberalization have been impressive. Teledensity has increased from merely 2 percent or so in 1999 to around 26.22 percent in 2008 and almost 6 million mobile subscribers are added every month. Wireless has been the principal engine for telecom growth in the country. The wireless subscriber base has grown from 0.88 million in1999 to 261.07 million in 2008. Given the importance of the Telecom Regulatory Environment (TRE) on the outcomes of reforms, LIRNEasia has developed a TRE index, which summarizes stakeholders’ perception on certain TRE dimensions. The index is created with the help of a survey of the key stakeholders. The first survey was conducted in July 2006 in five Asian countries, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Thailand, and the Philippines on six dimensions: i) market entry; ii) access to scarce resources; iii) interconnection; iv) tariff regulation; v) anti-competitive practices; and vi) universal services, for the fixed and mobile sectors. In the most recent survey carried out in July 2008, a seventh dimension dealing with the “quality of service” was added, and the survey was conducted for the broadband sector in addition to fixed and mobile sectors. The survey was carried out in eight countries, which are, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Pakistan, Thailand, and the Philippines.
... The process involved submitting an application, getting public comments on the application, getting responses from the applicants regarding the comment, before NTC made a decision following this process. Applicants were evaluated along three criteria: track record, rollout plan, and their schedule rates for their services (Jain 2007). ...
The TRE survey was conducted from May 17 to July 7, 2008. Sixty-six (66) respondents comprised the three different stakeholder groups who participated in the study. Each group had at least 16 respondents who answered the survey. Compared with the TRE in 2006 there were mixed results across the same dimensions surveyed in 2008. There are some dimensions that improved, and some that declined. Those that increased were perceptions about Universal Service Obligations, Regulation of anti-competitive practices and TRE for interconnection in the mobile sector in particular. Among those perceptions that declined were the TREs for Market Entry and Access to Scarce Resources. There was no change in perceptions on tariff regulation, which may be due to perceptions that declining tariffs are attributable more to market forces due to competition in both mobile and fixed lines, rather than direct rate regulations imposed by the state. The broadband sector which was made part of the 2008 TRE had no comparative rating in 2006. However, on average, the scores obtained for broadband TRE was lower than the scores obtained for both mobiles and fixed line telephones. This suggests that informed stakeholders perceive that regulators have not been focusing on this sector as much as it has with voice services. CDMA phones, also known as ‘wireless fixed line’ are considered part of the fixed line telephones. A seventh dimension, involving quality of service was introduced in the 2008 TRE. It is in this dimension that the mobile sector scored the highest, which implies (given how competition in the mobile sector is most intense) that competition can help spur improvement in services.
