Universal service obligations and public payphone use: Is regulation still necessary in the era of mobile telephony?

Maude Hasbi

Telecommunications Policy, 2015, vol. 39, issue 5, 421-435

Abstract: This paper analyses empirically whether universal service obligations for public payphone provision are still relevant in the European electronic communications market. It relies on micro-level data on 106,989 households from 27 EU countries, from 2005 to 2009, to estimate the impact of universal service obligations on public payphone use. A counterfactual scenario predicts the average use of public payphones if no universal service obligations were imposed in the EU countries. The estimation results show that universal service obligations do not have any significant impact on public payphone use. Only coverage obligations, i.e., when the law imposes a minimum number of payphones depending on the density of population, have a positive, though low, impact on payphone use. The counterfactual model predicts that if universal service obligations had been absent, between 2005 and 2009 public payphone use would have been 15% lower.

Keywords: Universal service obligations; Public payphones (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:telpol:v:39:y:2015:i:5:p:421-435

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DOI: 10.1016/j.telpol.2015.03.004

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