Motivated by recent UK experience, we study the problem of mobile call termination. This is an intriguing policy story, in which regulation has been imposed on what appears to be a competitive industry. We introduce a framework which integrates two existing literatures: one analyzing calls from the fixed network to mobile networks (where the predicted market failure involves the termination charge being set at the monopoly level), and one analyzing calls from one mobile network to another (where the predicted unregulated termination charge lies below the efficient level). Our unified framework allows us to consider the impact of wholesale arbitrage and demand-side substitution. In the absence of very significant market expansion possibilities, we find the unregulated termination charge lies between the efficient and the monopoly benchmarks. There remains a rationale for regulation, albeit reduced relative to the earlier literature.
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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Dixit, Avinash K, 1986.
"Comparative Statics for Oligopoly,"
International Economic Review,
Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 27(1), pages 107-22, February.
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