The aim of this paper is to estimate the importance of (induced) network effects in the use of mobile telephones and the impact of the structure of social networks on a consumer's adoption decision. This is done using social network data obtained from a survey of second year undergraduate students at the University of Nottingham Business School. We find that students strongly coordinate their choice of mobile phone operators, but do this only for operators which charge a price difference between on- and off-net calls. Coordination is strongest within groups of students who frequently interact with each other, but weaker with students from outside their group. Furthermore, the students did not coordinate their choice of mobile handsets - there rather is a tendency to choose a different handset than the one used by their friends.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Industrial Economics Division in its series Occasional Papers with number
14.