The economic implications of satellite technology and the industrialization of space

This article examines the economic issues emerging from systems options in space industrialization, allocation of orbital space and the impact of satellite technology on economic development. The economics of space industrialization involve most areas of economic analysis, including market failures, regulation and the theory of economic development. With the global economy wavering between recessions and upturns, and with the debts of developing countries threatening the international banking system, the economic impact of satellite technology becomes increasingly relevant.     

INMARSAT: looking beyond the maritime community

As a relatively new satellite organization, INMARSAT is engaged in making its system known to the maritime community with a view to increasing its usage. Current priorities include removal of restrictions on communications equipment in harbours and territorial waters, the setting up of disaster relief communications systems on land, the development of the Future Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (FGMDSS), cooperation with the aeronautical communities in a common satellite system, and planning for its second-generation system.     

The use of picturephone service in a hospital

A Picturephone® two way visual communications system was operational from March 1973 to April 1976 at the Bethany-Garfield Hospital in Chicago, and achieved metered usage as high as 1800 calls per month. To assist the AT&T Marketing Department in its visual communications market exploration programme, interviews of Bethany-Garfield personnel who had access to the system were conducted. When asked to rate a number of individual features of the system, the high and medium users rated the fast access feature above all others. Thus the main reason for the high usage of the Picturephone system appears to have been less related to its visual communications feature than to its ‘hot-line’ capability to reach contacts quickly.     

Foreign and domestic US policies: Spectrum reservations and media balance

This article examines the US opposition to a priori planning of the HF and space satellite spectrum, and ‘orbital slots’. This opposition is then contrasted with the rationale of domestic pre-engineered allocation and allotment plans for television and FM radio. The article then contrasts the US animus towards Third World calls for a ‘balanced’ information flow with the longstanding US commitment to fairness, balance, equal access and diversity. The author suggest that the operation of a foreign-domestic double standard could damage US credibility.     

The Pacific Islands. Policy options for telecommunications investment

The Independent Commission for World-Wide Telecommunications Development (Maitland Commission) reported that telecommunication networks, including public telephone systems, are an infrastructure which aids economic development throughout the world. The Commissions objective is to bring the majority of the world's population within easy access of a telephone and, in time, other communications services. Development in the Pacific Islands region is slowed by a lack of efficient communications. The islands are spread over 29 million square kilometers of ocean and extremely vulnerable to natural disasters. Pacific Island Nations (PINs) have problems of foreign exchange, skill shortages, and poor credit terms. Telecommunications infrastructure audits showed the overall regional teledensity of 3 telephones per 100 population. The individual countries vary form 8.3 in Fiji to 1.5 in Papua New Guinea and 25.2 in New Zealand. The population of the developing island countries is in mostly rural areas where there is a chronic shortage of telephones. The constraints on radio systems can be overcome with satellite technology. The new technologies are coming on the market faster than these countries can afford to handle them. By using satellite technology and sharing facilities PINs can greatly reduce the cost of telecommunications systems. Fiber optic cables will be used to carry large volumes of traffic over major routes while satellites can be used for a array of services for the smallest PIN nation to the largest route rim country. Work is being done to standardize the equipment specifications and to develop policies for the coordination of regional telecommunications training. To further facilitate communications development in this area, changes need to be made in international funding priorities for development, and recommendations by the Maitland Commission must be taken seriously.     

A DOMSAT for Australia: Communications planning under strain

The events leading up to the announcements of a domestic communication satellite for Australia are outlined. The implications of the satellite decision are discussed in relation to planning for the communications infrastructure as a whole. It is suggested that the communication satellite debate has revealed weaknesses in the existing policy planning process and that these will be exacerbated by the satellite decision unless appropriate strategies are developed.     

EUTELSAT's regional role

Interim EUTELSAT was established in 1977 as the provisional organization for the operation of commercial satellite telecommunications systems for the European region. EUTELSAT's definitive statute is expected to come into force at the beginning of 1984. This article looks at the objectives of EUTELSAT and considers the organization's role as a regional operator within the context of a global satellite communications system.     

The political economy of satellite business

Satellite communications systems are the outcome of the fusion of big governments, high technology and big business, whose needs they meet. As a major growth sector they are becoming extremely important in economic terms. But satellite communications raise wider issues of the relationships between rich and poor countries and within rich countries. They will crucially influence the location of economic activity and the future prospects for countries in terms of access to information, decision making and income. The article discusses these questions and suggests how Europe might improve its position. It also argues that participation in public policy on satellite communications should be opened to a wider range of parties.     

Satellite communications : US policy considerations

Regulatory decisions have controlled the possible technical alternatives in the use of artificial satellites, for both domestic and international telecommunications, since the enactment by the US Congress of the Communications Satellite Act of 1962. At the same time, advancements in technology have caused satellite systems to play a larger role in telecommunications. An updating of the 1934 Communications Act would allow for a more definitive statement of national satellite policy and for a revised regulatory standard. This article reviews some of the principle factors which have influenced communications satellite policy, and offers additional issues for consideration that can affect the development of communications satellite markets, systems and services.     

Regulatory issues in regional satellite communications: Towards a USA - Mexico bilateral agreement

This article examines the issues raised by the drawing up of a bilateral agreement for satellite communications between the USA and Mexico. Mexico has been mainly leasing capacity from INTELSAT and is developing its own Morelos satellite system. Both the USA and Mexico are keen to develop transborder satellite telecommunications services, but before coming to an agreement both parties must arrive at a clear definition of the main concepts that will constitute the agreement. Key concepts being analysed are: services classification, the reciprocity principle, economic harm to INTELSAT, and technical harm to INTELSAT.     

International legal norms governing development of the orbit/spectrum resource

Resource development is the process of dispersing concentrated values. International law relating to resource development establishes objectives for value dispersion and puts forward rules by which these objectives may be attained. The geostationary orbit and the electromagnetic spectrum are two store-houses of value, or resources, coming under increasingly vigorous international control. The author first describes geostationary satellite communications as the dispersion of values concentrated in the geostationary orbit and in the electromagnetic spectrum. He then addresses the objectives of international satellite communications policy and the relative effectiveness of relevant legal rules in implementing those objectives.     

我国移动通信企业竞争模型及其策略——基于产品质量差异的分析

我国移动通信市场呈现典型的双寡头竞争结构。移动通信企业的实际经营状况表明.我国移动通信企业竞争问题不能用经典的伯川德模型解释。在分析影响移动通信市场企业竞争因素的基础上.本文建立了考虑产品质量差异的我国移动通信企业竞争的纳什均衡模型。通过对模型的数值计算与分析,探讨了我国移动通信企业竞争的特征和规律。在运用我国移动通信企业竞争的实际数据进行经验分析并验证了上述竞争模型之后.本文评价和提出了我国移动通信企业的竞争策略。     

Mobile targeting in industrial marketing: Connecting with the right businesses

Although the existing literature has acknowledged the importance of mobile marketing, few scholars have examined the efficacy of mobile targeting. This paper contributes to the burgeoning literature on mobile targeting by investigating the effects of customer mobile habits and social capital on firm sales. Leveraging unique customer mobile browsing data from a major telecom service provider in China, we use a Bayesian SEM (structural equation modeling) approach to show that customer mobile habits and social capital exert significant influences on customers' purchase intentions. Specifically, customers who engage in more hedonic mobile behaviors, such as social networking, video browsing, and gaming are associated with a higher probability of purchasing, controlling for the usage of communications apps including messaging and emailing apps, and the usage of functional apps, such as maps, living services, and app market apps. Additionally, our research results reveal a significant positive effect of social capital on firms' sales performance. These findings offer important insights that are often missing from organizational targeting campaign designs in terms of targeting both the right customers and the right business alliance partners and enable a better understanding of managerial and decision-making implications in the context of the B2B market in general.     

Net neutrality and market power: The case of South Africa

Net neutrality rules have been implemented in many developed countries, often in response to concerns over network operator market power and potential blocking or throttling of content. However, developing countries typically have significantly lower levels of internet penetration and usage. Market power in respect of internet access looks quite different given that mobile is the predominant means of connection and there are often three or more mobile operators. In South Africa, there is a quasi-monopoly in the paid satellite broadcasting market and broadband providers zero-rating content from third parties (such as Netflix) may bring about more competition. We test the main theories of harm arising in the net neutrality debate, including network operator market power and exclusion among content providers using data on the number of announced prefixes and peers and IP addresses and considering examples of bundling and zero-rating conduct by operators. We find that net neutrality rules are less likely to be required in South Africa and other developing countries and that strict enforcement of such rules could in fact hinder competition in markets for content, telecommunications networks and other related markets.     

Determinants of IT Usage and New Product Performance*

Explosive growth of information technologies (IT) has prompted interest in examining the role of IT in new product development (NPD). Through desktop software and Web‐based tools, IT has been used to aid idea generation and product testing as well as for NPD activities such as process and portfolio management. Recent research suggests, however, that a gap exists between IT availability and usage. Given the importance of IT in creating business value through the development of new products and services, the present study seeks to identify factors that affect IT usage. Further, anecdotal evidence and conceptual studies intimate that the usage of IT tools for NPD can shorten time to market, can improve product quality, and can increase productivity. However, empirical substantiation of this impact is mostly nonexistent. The current study investigates the relationship between IT usage and two measures of new product performance: speed to market and market performance. Employing a mail‐survey methodology, the study uses data from a sample of practitioner members from the Product Development & Management Association to examine the effect of project risk, existence of a champion, autonomy, innovative climate, IT infrastructure, and IT embeddedness on the extent of IT usage. These data are also used to explore the impact of IT usage on speed to market and market performance. The results indicate that project risk, existence of a champion, and IT embeddedness positively affect the extent of IT usage for NPD. Additionally, IT usage positively and significantly influences the performance of the new product in the marketplace. Surprisingly, and contrary to popular belief, IT usage does not have any impact on speed to market. An important implication of this study is that IT usage influences performance but not in the way managers expect. Specifically, IT usage does not seem to affect speed to market but rather positively impacts the performance of the new product in the marketplace. This result suggests that IT usage in NPD provides far more value to firms than previously thought and provides evidence to support greater investments in IT for product development efforts. Other implications of the study are that unless IT is embedded into the NPD process and champions for IT tools exist, chances are that IT will not be used and its benefits will not be realized.     

Managing and modeling the price reduction effect in mobile telecommunications traffic

As needs for telecommunications services diversify, an increasingly wide range of services is becoming available in the market. Service price reduction is one strategy used by service providers to retain existing subscribers. A price reduction for one service, however, can affect the individual-level usage for other services. Price reductions can also be imposed on a service provider by regulation. For these reasons, understanding how price reductions affect service usage is of growing importance to the telecommunications industry for purposes of pricing and tariff development. In this paper, an individual-level usage model for telecommunications services is developed and the effects on usage of a price reduction are analyzed. The model is applied to age-stratified aggregate traffic data for a Korean mobile telecommunication service provider. Finally, a 0-1 integer programming model is proposed for choosing which market segment should be targeted with a price reduction to minimize revenue loss. These models can be applied to market segmentation and price reduction strategy.     

Spectrum management reform: Rethinking practices

Unparalleled growth in wireless communications has increased the pressure for more spectrum to support more users, more uses and more capacity. To alleviate that pressure, major regulatory changes were introduced in several countries in two key areas of spectrum management, namely spectrum assignment and allocation. This paper analyzes those changes and discusses strategies and tactics for deregulating the use of radio spectrum. Spectrum management reforms are considered within the theoretical framework of transition economics, which is concerned with optimal reform speed and sequencing. The paper shows how Anglo-Saxon and European countries have been implementing gradual reforms. Meanwhile, Central American reformers have chosen a fast transition from command-and-control regulation to market mechanisms. Transition economics is used to evaluate the advantages and drawbacks of different spectrum reform strategies.     

Vergleich von Allokationsmethoden zur Kapazitätsvergabe bei grenzüberschreitenden Netzengpässen

Several market initiatives within Europe aim at implementing flow-based methods for capacity allocation. Compared to the common transaction-based methods, these new methods are supposed to lead to an improved utilisation of cross-border capacities. In order to quantify the implications, a model for the coupled consideration of the power plant dispatch and the resulting load flows in the transmission system was developed. By means of detailed data of the Central Western European region the model was used to highlight the advantages of a flow-based allocation. Due to the more accurate mapping of the actual flows within the algorithm, the trade volume can be increased significantly leading to an enhanced convergence of the single market prices. However, the involved market players do not benefit in the same way from the trading possibilities in the presented case. The algorithm does not send direct economic signals regarding the profitability of different locations of power plants because of the required simplifications in the practical implementation. But the system-wide impact of the input in a certain location can be evaluated and therefore also be controlled where appropriate.     

Communications and information resources in Canada

The author details Canada's efforts to maintain unity and national economic and cultural identity through its communication and information resources. The country's dependence on the USA is stressed. Computer communications, broadcasting and publishing industries, telephone and satellite communications, and research and development are covered and several Canadian innovations are introduced. It is concluded that, with appropriate action, Canadian communications and information resources could be used to strengthen national sovereignty.     

A mixed spectrum management framework for the future wireless service based on techno-economic analysis: The Korean spectrum policy study

The evolution of radio technology and various services has increased the world's dependence on wireless communications. The demand for and value of spectrum resources therefore are also increasing. Spectrum efficiency is the most important factor in managing spectrum scarcity. However, under the current spectrum management approach, it is difficult to adopt innovative technologies that improve spectrum efficiency and flexible usage in the current dynamic wireless market. Recently, there have been several approaches to improve efficient use of spectrum resources, and each approach has its own advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, this research first discusses current issues and analyzes relative social welfare based on the different characteristics of technology and market conditions to compare various attributes of each approach. Based on the techno-economic simulation results, this paper introduces a mixed spectrum management framework for the future wireless service and support policy makers’ decision making. Furthermore, the mixed spectrum policy to spectrum management in Korea is proposed to find a more realistic and efficient spectrum management policy.