The Global Communications Consortium at the London Business School organises ambitious and stimulating events on important regulatory and policy issues, bringing together industry leaders, policy makers, and experts from academia to debate the challenges ahead.

Our aim is to provide an independent forum to help inform the continuing debates about the evolving regulatory and policy framework in the communications sector, especially in the context of technology and market change and continuing convergence.

Prof. Leonard Waverman: Director
Robin Foster: Associate Director

In November 2007, we held a major two day conference in London on competition and regulation in the converging communications sector. The keynote speaker was David Currie, Chair of Ofcom. Also taking part were leading academics including Martin Cave, Jerry Hausman, Greg Sidak, Tom Hazlett, Len Waverman, Paddy Barwise, John Naughton, Robin Mason, Helen Weeds and Tommaso Valletti.  Ed Richards of Ofcom chaired a session on public interest content in a broadband world. 

Here are some of the papers and presentations:

David Currie: Regulation, investment and the consumer interest

Klaus Kohrt: The challenges of spectrum regulation

Andrew Heaney: Regulation and Competition - the UK market perspective

Jerry Hausman: Are regulators forward looking? - copper prices and telecommunications networks

Martin Cave: Broadband regulation

Tsuruhiko Nambu: The current MIC regulatory policy and issues in Japan

Len Waverman: Access regulation in Europe: impact on alternative infrastructure

Robert Crandall:  Ex Ante or Ex Post? The change in telecoms regulation in the EU and North America.

Scott Savage: The effects of competition in the price for cable modem internet access

Lorenzo Pupillo, Giovanni Amendola: Facilities based competition in broadband - regional markets

Thomas Hazlett: Natural experiments in US broadband regulation

Helen Weeds: TV wars - content and competition in pay TV

Kip Meek: Public interest in a broadband world.

Simon Terrington: Public interest content in a new media world.

Paddy Barwise: old and new media and the public interest

17 October: "Geographic markets: changing the map of regulation?"

This seminar examined the arguments for adopting geographic markets in telecoms regulation.  The first part focused on wholesale broadband markets, and discussed the benefits, costs and practicalities of defining geographic markets. While it was acknowledged that the drawing of geographic market boundaries could be arbitrary, and might call for significant continuing regulatory oversight, few disagreed with the proposition that this was theoretically the correct approach.  We then turned to the subject of NGA. Some suggested that  a new approach to regulation here might involve forbearance in those areas in which NGA infrastructure competition seems possible. Equally, some areas might only ever support one NGA supplier, in which case the enduring bottleneck would require regulation.  The papers presented at the seminar are available below.

Presentations:

Peter Culham, Ofcom

Paul Richards, BT

Ed Rushton, Colt

Marcel Coderch, CMT

Stefano Mannoni, Agcom

Lorenzo Pupillo, Telecom Italia

The GCC and its directors have produced a number of papers on telecoms and broadcasting policy and regulation over the past months.  Here are a few selected links.

The GCC in 2006/7: a review of the year 
This paper, written by Leonard Waverman and Robin Foster, looks back over the 2006/7 GCC year, and draws out the important themes which have been discussed in the various GCC workshops and seminars. It concludes that broadband developments will require a fundamental re-engineering of the regulatory model for both networks and content, and highlights some of the key policy challenges ahead.

Investment in Telecommunication Networks: A 21st Century Perspective (Kalyan Dasgupta & Leonard Waverman).  This paper spells out the strategic importance of telecommunications investment to the modern knowledge economy, and highlights the need for appropriate regulation to promote investment.

Ofcom's publication: "Communications the next decade", contains an overview co-authored by Robin Foster, and an essay on "The need for a new regulatory paradigm" by Leonard Waverman.  It can be found at http://www.ofcom.org.uk/research/commsdecade/

"The future of broadcasting regulation".  In January 2007, the UK Department for Culture Media and Sport published a report  by Robin Foster which examines a number of future scenarios and their implications for UK broadcasting policy.

"Self and co-regulation in a digital media world". This is a discussion paper prepared by Robin Foster for the European Policy Forum, October 30, 2007 

The Impact of Telecoms on Economic Growth in Developing Countries (Leonard Waverman, Meloria Meschi and Melvyn Fuss) (PDF 590kb)

The Real Digital Divide, The Economist 12th March 05 (PDF 146kb)

"Calling an End to Poverty", Economist 9th July 05 (PDF 175kb)