Erik Bohlin

Ivey Business School and Chalmers University of Technology

This study focuses on these and other essential aspects, such as the most appropriate policies and regulations in Europe, while at the same time offering a perspective on the world’s significant pioneers in the deployment of this technology. This volume, a bridge between academia and policymakers, represents an important step for the European Liber...

Based on a unique and exhaustive database, including micro-level pooled cross-sectional data on 23 million observations over nine years, from 2009 to 2017, we assess whether broadband quality is correlated with income and unemployment reduction. Overall, the results do not tend to show any significant effect of download speed on either income or th...

This article examines the roles and consequences of different approaches to 5G market design for innovation. The analysis is grounded in a conceptual framework that explicitly considers the complementarities among networks, applications, and services. Good policy arrangements align the legal and regulatory framework with the technical and economic...

This study aims to identify the consequence of social media usage on firm performance. To this end, it proposes a conceptual map that shows promising linkages between the maturity level realization of an organization in social media usage and its corresponding performance consequences. The conceptual map was developed by combining two theories: per...

The field of artificial intelligence (AI) is experiencing a period of intense progress due to the consolidation of several key technological enablers. AI is already deployed widely and has a high impact on work and daily life activities. The continuation of this process will likely contribute to deep economic and social changes. To realise the trem...

This paper conducts a comprehensive literature survey of the papers that examine the link between ICT and economic growth. Using a rigorous screening framework, we found 208 academic papers that were published from 1991 to the cutoff date of October 30, 2018. This survey provides a robust set of insights into the distribution, research strategies,...

A business model can be perceived as a simple, yet focused, representation of the related activities of a company, which describes how to create the value of the company in terms of information, products and services. Given the significance of the Internet service infrastructure in new Internet-based business logic, notably the positive relationshi...

5G wireless services will constitute an integral part of the future gigabit communication network infrastructure. Policy makers worldwide are striving to design legal and regulatory frameworks that best support 5G services. There is wide agreement that a competitive sector organization is superior, but the emerging models differ in the specific rol...

5G services will require investment in a differentiated infrastructure and complementary applications and services. Exploring the full innovation potential of 5G will require entrepreneurial experiments, which are best supported by a competitive, deregulated environment. National and European ex ante regulation of this dynamic market environment ri...

5G-Dienste erfordern Investitionen in eine ausdifferenzierte Infrastruktur sowie in komplementäre Anwendungen und Dienste. Um die Innovationspotentiale von 5G auszuschöpfen, sind unternehmerisches Risiko und Experimentierfreudigkeit unerlässlich-Unternehmertum wird in einem wettbewerbsfreundlichen, deregulierten Umfeld am besten gefördert. Bei eine...

Social media is widely recognized as a challenging new communication technology in both economic and social contexts. The present study explores how banks have exploited this technology in the range of consumer retail banking services offered by 100 leading global banks on the three major social networking sites (SNS): Facebook, Twitter, and YouTub...

A number of studies have indicated that higher broadband penetration leads to greater economic impacts. Nevertheless other characteristics of broadband services such as different speeds are becoming more important to determine the economic impacts. This study estimates the relationship between broadband speed and economic outputs. The results show...

This paper investigates the evolution of the telecommunications policy agenda by means of text mining forty years -from 1976 to 2016- of papers in the journal . Telecommunications Policy. Text mining techniques help identify the key topics, the dominant combinations of concepts and the main areas of research within this multidisciplinary -technical...

THE European Union has lost in the successive generations of mobile communications the leadership it had achieved in GS M to the US , Japan, and Korea. The authors propose to align properly the spectrum award procedures with overall EU economic objectives. This would entail a reversal of the hierarchy of variables considered in frequency auctions,...

Looking back at the last decade, the mobile phone has undergone great development, from only voice calls and text messages to a multi-purpose device that includes a camera, music player, games, and even a small computer. The development of internet features in mobile phones has also continuously and extensively changed from providing only limited i...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a guideline for the European Union (EU) to support high-speed broadband development based on economic frameworks and successful countries, Korea and Sweden. In the past decade, both policymakers and academic scholars have so far emphasised broadband policy mostly on the supply side. Increasing broad...

This paper offers a baseline for understanding the mobile Internet market in Myanmar before widespread adoption occurs. The purpose of the paper is to explore consumers' initial demand for existing and future mobile services; the behaviour of mobile users and mobile Internet usage in such a greenfield market where mobile phone services are still em...

Many studies have been conducted to investigate the relationship between technology development and economic performance and to demonstrate the important role of information and communication technology (ICT) sectors.

The common idea of open access policy is that it refers to the sharing of particular elements, such as wholesale access networks, backhaul, under-sea cable and internet exchange points in fixed and mobile networks. In broadband networks, the use of open access policy usually refers to the infrastructure parts, which are considered a bottleneck. Man...

Over the past decade, several debates on spectrum management regimes in the developed countries have been held. However, the spectrum management regimes of developing countries are relatively understudied, especially least-developed countries. This paper studies current spectrum management reform in Myanmar. Myanmar has pursued reform of its teleco...

Competition policy attempts to address the potential for market failure by encouraging competition in service markets. Often, in wireless communication service markets, national regulatory authorities seek to encourage entry via the spectrum assignment process. Instruments used include the assignment mode (auction or beauty contest), setting aside...

Indonesia is currently enjoying rapid development in the telecommunications sector despite the economy having been heavily dependent for almost four decades on the two largest sectors: the manufacturing industry and trade. The telecommunications sector has played an important role in stimulating economic growth in the country during the last few ye...

This article examines the prices paid for 700 MHz licenses in recent Federal Communications Commission auctions. Econometric modelling confirms the presence of economies of scale and scope in wireless spectrum valuations. That is, higher prices are recorded for areas with large populations, whilst lower prices are realized for geographically large...

This study addresses the factors driving multiple mobile phone subscriptions by consumers in the Swedish market. The generalised Poisson model GPR is applied to count data obtained from two national annual surveys. The results show that business subscription and household size are consistently the main predictors of the multiple mobile phone subscr...

This study examines OECD fully unbundled and line sharing monthly wholesale prices for 2002–2008. The results are informative with economic analysis appearing to inform regulator decision making. However, with the cost proxy (viz., copper-wage relative price, population density, urbanisation and business line penetration), regulator costing methods...

This paper reviews the literature on digital divide and e-readiness in different fields with an eye to identifying trends and gaps in prominent research areas. In this study, 411 articles, conference papers, master’s and doctoral dissertations, textbooks, and working papers on digital divide and e-readiness are classified and elaborated and their r...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the demand for fixed broadband in Thailand. Data were obtained from a national survey in 2010 by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) of Thailand. The bivariate probit model was employed to examine empirically whether accessibility to fixed telephony infrastructure, socio-economic va...

McMillan's (1995) ‘flexibility’ proposition suggests a testable hypothesis about beauty contests spectrum assignments. Such flexibility purportedly allows regulators to pursue social welfare (network deployment) goals. A separate argument is that more competitive beauty contests enhance the probability of assignment. The study concludes that regula...

This chapter considers the opportunity costs involved in using government funds for broadband in the context of a future European proposal to publicly finance broadband infrastructures. Using the input-output (IO) table methodology, it analyzes whether European investments in broadband infrastructures would improve welfare. The chapter begins with...

This article attempts to identify factors that influence the potential demand for m-government service adoption in Japan by analysing survey responses. This study identifies smartphone ownership, mobile application activity and e-government subscription as demand drivers. These results suggest government should encourage Juki cards and the e-tax pa...

Most studies in the mobile communication field focus on the acceptance of the technology rather than the resistance of it, a trend that makes researchers try to understand only the powerful actors in society. Instead, this paper explores the socio-economic characteristics of mobile phone service have-nots. Based on an analysis of samples from three...

This paper aims to measure the impact of broadband speed on the household income based on set of survey data conducted by Ericsson Consumer Lab in eight OECD and three BRIC countries in 2010 with the sample of study comprises a total of 20.000 respondents. The analysis is crucial as the broadband speed affects not only the end-users (increasing gro...

Purpose The aim of this paper is to explore the price plans offered by Thai mobile operators and analyse the role of demand characteristics in the development of new price plans. The paper also shows how demand affects a firm's degree of innovativeness in terms of the number of new price plans. Design/methodology/approach The empirical qualitative...

In this study, we examine the comparative performance of mobile wireless markets in Canada, the US and the EU. We find that Canada's wireless market is generally performing on par with the US, while the EU has fallen behind both Canada and the US in recent years. As in the US, Canadian wireless customers use their connections much more intensively...

This study aims to explain whether the diffusion of innovation, particularly in the case of mobile service diffusion, can be considered an evolutionary process. To justify this proposition, the mobile service use is considered as artifact-activity couple which represents a dynamic combination of the artifact, i.e. the mobile service and handset, wi...

The distinguishing feature of two-sided markets is that the pricing structure, that is, the relative prices charged to each side, matters. Regulators need to understand and account for the interdependence of prices in both sides. Some interventions that ...

This paper aims to measure the impact of broadband speed on economic growth in the OECD countries. The macroeconomic indicators for this study were collected from OECD databases, except for the speed data, which were gathered from Ookla, a company that provides broadband testing and web-based network diagnostic applications data on a daily basis. W...

Climate change is perhaps the most critical issue of humankind at this time, being one of the most profound challenges ever to have confronted social, political, and economic systems. The consequences of many disasters for example, Hurricane Katrina in the US in 2005, Tsunami in Japan in 2011, or the biggest snow storm in Eastern Europe in 2012 aff...

This paper aims to investigate whether mobile broadband (MB) is a complementary or substitute service to fixed broadband (FB) by examining survey data collected by the Post-och telestyrelsen (PTS) in 2009. These data are supplemented with provider broadband service price data. Study findings indicate that price and housing mode are important determ...

A binomial logit model is estimated on individual telecommunications service use data. The model examines whether operator-specific switching costs and termination-based prices impact on retention. The results show that service attributes (brand image and on-net prices) are significant in retaining subscribers. As customers of larger networks face...

Purpose – There are only a limited number of empirical analyses on the impacts of MTRs. According to the data from 2006-2011 by the European Regulators Group (ERG), many countries have continuously reduced their MTRs. This paper therefore aims to enrich the empirical analysis of the impacts of MTRs according to EC policy on retail prices. Design/m...

National regulatory authorities (NRAs) attempt to encourage participation in spectrum assignments by enhancing entrants' likelihood of success. The question this study addresses is: can NRA policy tools really affect the probability an entrant wins a 3G spectrum licence? In particular, the econometric analysis allows consideration of whether licenc...

This paper addresses the intergenerational effects of mobile telephone service diffusion in Sweden. Using the Norton-Bass model and the Islam-Meade model, it plots annual mobile service penetration rate data from 1956 to 2010 to explain the pattern of mobile telephone service diffusion. The results show that only the Norton-Bass model could achieve...

Note: This paper builds upon and extends findings presented in Bohlin, E., Lindmark, S.

The special issue of Telecommunications Policy focuses on the need of common themes, methodological caveats, and more research to get public support for the deployment of next generation access networks (NGAN). Next generation telecommunications infrastructures are considered as a principal example of a new technology for sustainable economic growt...

Previous studies conclude that broadband plays an important role in stimulating economic growth by generating new employment, and improving access to health and education. However, most of these analyses are conducted for developed countries, with little attention being paid to developing countries. This study aims to find out which factors should...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explain the determinant factors of switching behavior in the Thai cellular market before the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) policy is implemented. Design/methodology/approach A binary logit model and individual survey data from the National Telecommunications Commission 2009 are used to estimate the intenti...

Internet usage is growing around the world including in developing countries like Thailand. This study attempts to provide guidance to the National Regulatory Agency (NRA) by addressing the following question: What are the key determinant factors to explain the probability that an individual consumer uses the Internet? The multinomial logit model i...

This chapter examines empirically the effect of entry relaxation on the performance of the mobile telephone firms and the role of regulators in the Asian countries of Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Singapore and Thailand. Two hypotheses are tested: first, that the sector performance (as measured by mobile teledensity) imp...

To move towards an information society is a political goal of governments around the world. To achieve this goal, high-capacity broadband networks are regarded as fundamental infrastructure. An increase in broadband growth in a country results in increased opportunities for its people to participate in the network society. The EU, in particular, ha...

The vast majority of the studies investigating telecommunication development (diffusion of mobile phone, Internet, the broadband, etc.) that have been carried out in the literatures aim at assessing the impact on economic indicators, mainly the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), whereas little attention has actually been paid to investigate the other me...

Mobile Internet is growing around the world without exception for developing countries like Thailand by passing the poor legacy wired infrastructure. This study attempts to provide guidance to a national regulatory agency (NRA) by addressing the following question: What are the key determining factors to explain the probability that individual cons...

The term digital divide was introduced in the mid-1990s and defined as the gap separating those who have access to new forms of information technology from those who do not. The digital divide remains an important public policy debate that encompasses social, economic and political issues. This paper presents a literature review and classification...

Received analyses state that firms can use a bundling strategy to retain customers and capture new customers. Factors that determine the bundling strategy include product discount, service provider and customer characteristics. Consequently, this study addresses the fundamental question: What are the key determining factors that explain the probabi...

Since more than two decades, broadband has been recognized in the EU as having great benefits to economic and social development.This recognition is evident in the first EU policy document on the telecommunications market - the 1987 Green Paper - which assumed that harmonization and liberalization through competition mechanism could be used as the...

National regulatory authorities (NRAs) attempt to encourage participation in spectrum assignments by enhancing entrants' likelihood of success. The question this study addresses is: Can NRA policy tools really affect the probability an entrant wins a 3G spectrum licence? In particular, the econometric analysis allows consideration of whether licenc...

This paper provides an analysis explaining the factors that determine the consumer¿s decision on bundling service in the Swedish telecommunications market. A multinomial model is employed to examine empirically whether the discount, service provider and socio-economic factors can explain the consumer's decision. The data from a national survey in...

Recognition of the growing importance of broadband to the public presents challenges for policy-makers in introducing efficient strategies, not only to serve the increasing demand for broadband among people in society but also to increase their economic contribution both in the short run and in the long run. Different measures and strategies have b...

Technological development together with liberalization policy has led to competition in the telecommunications market. Broadband has been recognized as a driving force in the social and economic development of nations, and many countries have introduced policies and/or regulatory frameworks to improve competition in broadband markets. An evolution...

As an aspect of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), the existence of the cellular industry is closely related to the achievement of economic development, especially due to the effect of network externalities and demand-side economics of scale. However, the adoption and buyer diffusion process from the demand side will depend on the avai...

This study provides an analysis to explain the emergence of quasi-subscribers - mobile phone subscribers with multiple subscriptions - and discusses its impact on the demand saturation for mobile phone subscription in Sweden. Using a logistic growth model and nonlinear regression based on observations from the year 2002 to 2009, the study estimates...

A double-edged sword phenomenon is illustrated by the consequences of the rapid penetration rate of information and communication technology (ICT) devices. Besides the success story of these devices becoming ubiquitous, there is also a visible decline in performance of the ICT industry in financial respects. Due to more intense competition and mark...

The purpose of this paper is to explain the determinate factors of switching behavior in the Thailand cellular market before the mobile number portability (MNP) policy is implemented. A binary logit model and individual survey data of the National Telecommunications Commission 2009 is used to estimate the intention of mobile phone consumers to swit...

Scarce radio spectrum is assigned to mobile network operators (MNOs) by national regulatory authorities (NRAs). Spectrum is usually assigned by beauty contest or an auction. The process requires that winners make a payment to the government. MNOs seek scarce spectrum to enable the provision of wireless services for profit. While MNOs are imperfectl...

The mobile broadband (MBB) in Swedish market has become a more attractive opportunity for service providers, with growing demand for ubiquitous broadband connectivity after the mobile operators got 3G license in 2000. MBB seems to have more advantage compare to Fixed broadband (FBB) in term of mobility, compatibility and quality of service. This pa...

Currently, the European Union is proposing the broadband as part of government responsibility to combat digital divide and as part of the European economic recovery package. However, from a public policy point of view, any recommendation of using government funds should consider the opportunity cost: whether the other alternative of spending the av...

The contributions of broadband to economic and social development have been accepted both empirically and theoretically. Many policies and regulations have been introduced to stimulate broadband penetration and growth. Yet competition is among the most fashionable policies of countries and regions. According to theory, perfect competition is the mo...

This paper advances a new concept, quasi-subscribers, to define the incidence of mobile phone multiple subscriptions. Through survey data, the paper shows that in Sweden the number of quasi-subscribers constitutes a significant portion of the mobile phone subscribers. Hence, there is a significant bias in the traditional method of measuring mobile...

Encouraging broadband availability to all end-users is one of the priority policies of government around the world. In the EU, several policies have been initiated. Among them, the inclusion of broadband in the scope of universal service has been discussed. This paper provides an overview of the current state and trends of universal service with fo...

The paper provides a literature review of collective use of spectrum (CUS) by consolidating the various perspectives from relevant literatures and the result of the public consultation from the Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG) on November 19, 2008. The paper provides an overview of spectrum management and spectrum assignment approaches plus an el...

Switching costs are one of the barriers to entry in telecommunication and also reduce consumer welfare. Many European telecom regulators including Nordic countries have decided to introduce Mobile Number Portability (MNP) policy to the mobile market. The regulators believe that MNP plays an important role in lowering consumers' switching costs. How...

As the competition becomes intense, cellular operators are asked to be as creative as possible in dealing with their existing market. The penetration rate in the Swedish cellular market is too high to create a possibility for further market expansion as a tool to gain additional profit. Thus, instead of enlarging the market, keeping the existing ma...

The environmental issue has generally received much attention from the public for decades, especially as a result of heavy industry - electrical energy, oil and gas, mining, steel and metals. Recently, attention has been paid to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and its effect on the knowledge and related industries. Broadband, both fi...

The Korean experience offers a case study in the necessary drivers behind rapid economic development based on ICTs, through insights into how alternative wireless technologies (AWTs) and their services have not just been developed, but have been popularised and brought to market. This paper examines the Korean success in telecommunications and summ...

The switchover from analogue to digital TV broadcasting in Europe will release significant spectrum in the UHF bands. This “Digital Dividend” could have a significant impact on the EU economy, depending on its allocation. The following article offers an assessment of the alternatives.