Reducing the level of switching costs in mobile communications: The case of Mobile Number Portability

Juan Maicas, Yolanda Polo and F. Javier Sese

Telecommunications Policy, 2009, vol. 33, issue 9, 544-554

Abstract: Switching costs are one of the most important economic forces that affect market competition in mobile communications. Both theoretical and empirical studies have shown that switching costs reduce market competition leading to higher prices, lower product and service quality, and lower customer welfare. Given their negative consequences, national regulatory authorities have designed policies aimed at reducing switching costs and fostering competition. One of the most important of these, in the mobile communications industry, is mobile number portability (MNP). The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of MNP on switching costs in mobile phone services. First, a hierarchical Bayes model is proposed to measure switching costs at the customer level and to investigate the impact of MNP on them. Second, this study examines the drivers of MNP adoption by customers using a binary logit specification. The results reveal that this regulatory policy has significantly reduced the cost of switching and that MNP adoption partially depends on customer-related variables.

Keywords: Switching; costs; Mobile; number; portability; (MNP); Regulatory; policy; Mobile; phone; services; Hierarchical; linear; model; (HLM) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596109000445
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:telpol:v:33:y:2009:i:9:p:544-554

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/30471/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... /30471/bibliographic

Access Statistics for this article

Telecommunications Policy is currently edited by Erik Bohlin

More articles in Telecommunications Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().