Search results

New technologies provide new opportunities for radio spectrum allocation and frequency use. This article seeks to summarize papers that form a special issue on spectrum management, and to provide also some outlooks toward policy.

This editorial gives an introduction to the selection of papers included in this special issue. The editorial lays out the basic questions guiding the debate about spectrum management and explains the contribution of the various papers to this debate.

The editorial points out the high social, political and economic importance of spectrum management, and the need for a critical discussion of regulatory approaches is emphasised.

The editorial summarizes papers for a special issue on spectrum management and will be of value to academics, business and policy makers.

This paper addresses the potential need for European public policy actions in the area of mobile communications, in particular of developments towards 4th generation networks (4G). The paper is based on work conducted for the EC/JRC/IPTS/ESTO project “The Future of Mobile Technologies in EU: Assessing 4G Developments”. The paper first reviews developments of 3G and 4G technologies in Japan, Korea, China and the USA. It briefly addresses potential costs and benefits of competition in infrastructures. The paper states that initiatives in Europe for technologies beyond 3G tend to address research issues, while players in Asia and the USA are aiming at sales of 4G‐equipment supposed to start as soon as possible. In conclusion, nine options for policy makers are presented, such as to stimulate 2.5G and 3G data markets, to analyse actual spectrum use, to continue analysing approaches competing with UMTS, to estimate costs and benefits of new approaches to spectrum regulation, and to evaluate steps towards frequency allocation.

The purpose of this paper is to construct a framework for discussion and future studies of the secondary use of electromagnetic spectrum.

The paper establishes some useful definitions and then systematically applies them to the secondary use case. This is extrapolated to develop a framework.

It is important to be careful to circumscribe discussions around secondary use, as each component of the framework poses different problems for implementation and research.

The paper proposes a way to structure the discussion of and research into secondary use of electromagnetic spectrum, which can apply significant clarity to future work in this area.

An aspect of spectrum reform receiving increasing attention is the introduction of secondary markets for spectrum in order to enable more flexibility to reassign unused and underused spectrum to users that will use it more efficiently. This paper proposes to focus on the policy issues relating to the development of well‐functioning secondary markets for spectrum.

The paper reviews developments in the debate over secondary markets for spectrum. It draws together key elements from the academic literature, various government and government‐commissioned reports, and the practical experience of the few countries that have already introduced spectrum trading. There is considerable focus on concerns and potential costs relating to the introduction of spectrum trading and liberalisation. This has a constructive aim – to draw attention to the need to address such concerns in order to facilitate the development of spectrum trading.

While there is a persuasive case for spectrum trading, countries have been slow to introduce it because of a number of concerns. This paper identifies these concerns and the regulatory framework/policies needed to address them.

The paper distils the policy issues in the debate over spectrum trading and identifies the role that regulators will need to play in the introduction, facilitation and regulation of secondary markets for spectrum.

This paper proposes to describe a model and the results of a simulation exercise used to compare welfare outcomes for four governance regimes that might be employed for wireless services: two spectrum ownership regimes and two open commons regimes. Aims also to examine practical implications for policy makers.

A formal economic model was constructed and computational techniques were employed to explore the welfare consequences of alternative applications of policy instruments.

For the model examined, the market does as well as can be expected from government in setting interference tolerance for both types of regimes. However, commons regimes always generate excessive entry. While the theoretical optimum achievable by government in an ownership regime exceeds predicted welfare for a commons regime, for most model specifications the difference is not too large and an ownership regime can easily under‐perform a commons regime if imperfectly‐informed policy makers set policy variables incorrectly.

The necessity of using computational methods limits the generality of the findings.

The modeling approach and analysis identify critical tradeoffs that must be addressed by policy makers in designing spectrum governance institutions.

This analytical approach makes possible hitherto impossible, side‐by‐side performance comparisons for alternative governance regimes. The framework can be extended and generalized to other policy issues.

New technologies challenge the traditional view that the radio spectrum must be tightly controlled and the new orthodoxy that a market‐based approach is the most efficient way to manage the spectrum. This article aims to make the case for collective use of the spectrum.

The paper draws on a range of literature, both technical and economic, as well as the authors' opinions to describe the economic context, market and other models for spectrum allocation, technological advances in signal processing, and the way forward for assessing future spectrum management policy, with particular reference to Europe.

Technical advances, from research in the commercial domain and from release of military research, combined with the increasingly important economic need to facilitate innovation in new radio technologies, demand a debate on a new approach to spectrum management policy.

The paper brings together the economic and technical arguments in favour of collective use of the radio spectrum and will be of value to academics, business and policy makers.

This paper seeks to examine current trends in spectrum management and implications for developing countries.

The paper summarizes the findings of an extensive review of recent literature on spectrum management. It addresses three questions: What is the case for spectrum management reform? What is the current debate on spectrum management all about? Why does this matter to developing countries?

Traditional spectrum management practice has led to technical and economic inefficiencies as well as obstacles to technological innovation. Two alternative approaches are being tried, one driven by the market (spectrum property rights) and another driven by technology innovation (commons). Practical solutions are evolving that combine some features of both. Although these changes are mainly taking place in high‐income countries, they are deeply relevant to developing countries as well.

Improving traditional administration of the spectrum in many developing countries would yield significant benefits, but governments may wish to consider moving straight into property rights or commons approaches. Countries at an early stage of building up spectrum management capacity may benefit from adopting new solutions from the start. These may be especially well suited for low‐ and middle‐income countries.

The paper offers a concise overview of major current trends in spectrum management, against which the responses of developing countries can be examined. The paper is extensively annotated and includes a selection of references, many of which are accessible online.

This paper aims to estimate the social gains from an analog TV switch‐off in 13 EU countries, focusing on the value of TV band spectrum in alternative uses.

By using data from existing mobile phone markets, changes are projected in retail prices for wireless voice services, assuming a reallocation (to mobile telephony) of about 42 percent of TV band spectrum.

It is forecast that retail mobile phone tariffs would substantially decline if a transition to digital television led to enhanced availability of VHF/UHF spectrum for wireless telecommunications. Consumer surplus gains offset transition costs by at least 2‐to‐1, and as much as 45‐to‐1. These net benefits are conservatively estimated in that other services (apart from mobile telephony) could prove more socially valuable, and because we ignore the considerable increase in video choices the transition could provide. It is also found, however, that wireless operators' profits sharply decline with additional spectrum, due to more intense competition. This suggests a public choice dynamic, often overlooked, that potentially helps to explain the slow pace of the digital TV transition.

Regulations blocking TV band spectrum from reallocation to non‐TV applications ought to be re‐examined in light of the associated costs and benefits.

This paper quantifies, using conservative methods, the cost of current spectrum policies.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the concept of framing in the field of risk governance and risk management research.

A five-constituent approach to framing – cognitive, strategic, action, emotional and institutional framing – is applied to contrastively analyze the multifaceted character of the two concepts of risk governance and risk management.

This paper analyzes the multifaceted utilization of risk governance framing and the conscious demarcation between risk governance and risk management. Risk governance framing strengthens the proactive control of strategic risks with regard to business model adaptation to changing risk landscapes. The verbal imagery of risk governance already sets the agenda for the sustainability-oriented as well as value-oriented steering of the risks of a business model. Following the analysis of the different framing areas, propositions are presented.

Although framing is applied in various academic disciplines, there is limited research relating to corporate risks. While risk governance provides companies with a concept to ensure the sustainability of their business models in the complex risk landscape, the related framing brings the appropriate interpretation and the deliberate tone into focus.