Are traffic charges needed to avert a coming capex catastrophe?

The net neutrality debate is now gathering steam in Europe, both at the Commission level and in member states. Against this background, four European telcos commissioned a report from AT Kearney, to support their opposition to net neutrality regulation. This report, A Viable Future Model for the Internet, claims that carriers are facing ballooning capex requirements to fund the growth of internet traffic and that the best way to address this structural problem is via traffic charges to online service providers.

In response Robert Kenny has written a paper, Are traffic charges need to avert a coming capex catastrophe?, that takes a critical look at the AT Kearney report, considering it from technical, economic and regulatory perspectives.

It received several positive reviews, and has been cited by BEREC (the umbrella body of European regulators), ARCEP (the French regulator) and the Norwegian Posts & Telecoms Authority. 

You can download the report here.

Are you considering a fibre subsidy? Questions to ask

A presentation by Rob Kenny to Australian MPs on NGN fibre subsidy. 

The presentation can be downloaded here.

Avoiding a regulatory chimera

In this paper for Chorus, Brian Williamson reviews the proposed approach to fibre regulation in New Zealand which would involve a combination of an anchor product, revenue cap and passive access (on commercial terms). The paper concludes that the proposed set of remedies would be overly constraining on service and pricing flexibility, and that a lower service level anchor product alone would be sufficient, without the addition of a revenue cap.

Bang or a whimper? The next Communications Act

This short paper by Kip Meek discusses some of the considerations for the next Communications Act.

The paper can be downloaded here.

Benefits of Expansive Mobile

Brian Williamson, in a paper for Ericsson, has examined the benefits of expansive mobile.

The pivot to smartphones, apps and mobile data has been underway for just over a decade, with internet companies announcing ‘mobile first’ strategies from 2010 and with a growing number of applications now mobile only. Policy priorities need to shift too, to reflect a mobile first world. In relation to mobile network deployment and development of connectivity dependent apps Europe lags the US and North East Asia. Yet expansive mobile, mobile connectivity that is ubiquitous, capable and can be tailored for different applications, is a general purpose technology that has the potential to raise productivity growth and lower the cost of achieving policy goals including mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and caring for an ageing population. Spectrum availability and improved incentives for infrastructure investment are required for Europe to build out expansive mobile, whilst a reappraisal of policy throughout the economy is required to fully capture the potential for innovation and use of expansive mobile to deliver better outcomes.