Funding improvements in the European broadband experience

In this paper for Google, Rob Kenny and Brian Williamson consider the case for a European Universal Service Fund.

They find that while this is an improvement over the recent proposal for traffic charges (not least becuase it would be directly linked to incremental investment), it would still have significant drawbacks.

Such a fund is not justified by the economics. Further establishing such a fund, and agreeing eligibility and allocation will all be highly contentious, with member states likely to have conflicting views. Thus any substantial investment is likely to arrive after the 2030 deadline for the Digital Decade targets. Indeed, a EUSF may be more likely to paralyse investment than enable it.

Global Patterns of Broadband Pricing

Over a number of years, Communications Chambers has prepared data sets of fixed and mobile broadband pricing around the world. (The most recent iteration is available here).

In this paper, we analyse the data we collected, looking at a range of issues including:

• How prices vary with GDP per capita
• The dynamism of different markets, based on the rate of change of tariffs
• How the unit cost of mobile data varies with data allowance, and how the marginal cost of fixed bandwidth varies
• The global distribution of fixed broadband line speed offered

Google International Broadband Pricing Study

Google have published our analysis on international fixed and mobile broadband prices.

The dataset (the fourth iteration we have prepared for Google) includes over 5,000 fixed and mobile broadband tariffs, from over 100 countries. 

You can access the datasets here.

Have we overdosed on techno-optimism?

The value of tech companies appears broadly in line with economy wide shares of surplus captured by firms, provided the tech sector continues to contribute to economy wide productivity growth at levels at, or even below, those seen historically. Arguably we have not overdosed on techno-optimism.

Whether you believe that, however, depends on your view of future productivity growth prospects, the part that tech will play in future productivity growth and the impact that regulation and anti-trust may have in promoting or harming future productivity growth and in altering the share of surplus captured by tech companies.

This paper by Brian Williamson considers the issues.

Hitting the right target - government connectivity targets

This article by Brian Williamson, on the tension between independent regulation and policy aspirations for outcomes in telecommunications markets, was published in InterMEDIA, an International Institute of Communications publication, in October 2017.