Mobile Call Termination

Mark Armstrong and Julian Wright

Economic Journal, 2009, vol. 119, issue 538, F270-F307

Abstract: We analyse charges levied by mobile telephone networks to deliver calls. We integrate two literatures: one analysing calls from the fixed network, where predicted unregulated termination charges are too high, and one analysing calls from rival mobile networks, where predicted charges are too low. In practice, however, networks adopt uniform charges for terminating both kinds of traffic, as do regulators. We show how incorporating wholesale arbitrage and demand-side substitution helps to reconcile theory with practice. In our framework, the unregulated charge is uniform and typically lies between the efficient and monopoly benchmarks. There remains a rationale for regulation, albeit reduced. Copyright © The Author(s). Journal compilation © Royal Economic Society 2009.

Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (74)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: Mobile Call Termination (2009)
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:ecj:econjl:v:119:y:2009:i:538:p:f270-f307

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... al.asp?ref=0013-0133

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Journal is currently edited by Martin Cripps, Steve Machin, Woulter den Haan, Andrea Galeotti, Rachel Griffith and Frederic Vermeulen

More articles in Economic Journal from Royal Economic Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing () and Christopher F. Baum ().