Browsing by Author "Howell, Bronwyn"

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Open Access
The Antipodean Approach: Government Funded Ultra-Fast Broadband Networks
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2012) Howell, Bronwyn
Bronwyn Howell presented 'The Antipodean Approach: Government Funded Ultra-Fast Broadband Networks' at the PTC Conference, Honolulu January 2012.
Open Access
The Brand is the Bundle - Strategies for the Mobile Ecosystem
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2009) Heatley, David; Howell, Bronwyn
The current mobile ecosystem is best understood in terms of a monopolistic competition model characterised by heterogeneous producers providing a range of differentiated products for consumers with heterogeneous preferences. Product differentiation offers producers some market power ultimately constrained by imperfect substitutes from rivals and the threat of market entry. To achieve their goals consumers require a mixture of products from the network handset and application domains. Reduced search and other transaction costs are a demand-side benefit of product bundling. Producers in this market have high fixed costs and low marginal costs. High fixed costs discourage entry which increases the market power of producers. Low marginal costs and uncorrelated customer preferences across products for individual consumers encourage producers to expand their sales using supply-side bundling. Thus there are strong supply and demand side benefits from product bundling. We argue that producers will compete in terms of differentiated bundles combining network handset and application features with branding as the essential strategy for bundle differentiation. Successful business strategies will require direct access to customers and information about their specific preferences. For illustration we look at the currently apparent strategies of Google Apple and Nokia. The mobile ecosystem is complex but not unique. Strong parallels can be drawn between the mobile ecosystem and the television ecosystem. Google appears to be following a "free to air" strategy and Apple a "pay TV" strategy in bundle differentiation. Television manufacturers are largely undifferentiated and have little market power: this may be the fate of handset manufacturers and network operators who are comparatively powerless to withstand the evolutionary development of the mobile ecosystem.website for Communications & Strategies http://www.comstrat.org/
Open Access
Broadband Diffusion: Lags from Vintage Capital, Learning by Doing, Information Barriers and Network Effects
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2002) Howell, Bronwyn; Obren, Mark
This paper examines the factors that affect the uptake of broadband in the residential and SME markets. We searched the economics literature on diffusion theory and identified five different models that potentially provide insights into the broadband phenomenon. These models were applied to the New Zealand market using detailed product and market data from an index ISP and the major telecommunications network provider which we consider representative of the market as a whole.We find evidence to suggest that the adoption of ADSL the dominant broadband technology in New Zealand is driven differently in the residential and SME markets. SMEs pay a fixed fee for each telephone circuit plus a toll tariff for all calls including local calls. An SME with multiple computers accessing the Internet requiring multiple telephone lines or with a reasonable level of traffic generating toll charges can cost-justify prematurely retiringmodem capital and introducing ADSL as there are immediate cost benefits. However an SME with little traffic and only one telephone line may still find that dial-up modems provide adequate service at a lower price.
Open Access
Broadband in New Zealand: a market in search of a competition policy?
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2011) Howell, Bronwyn
Bronwyn Howell's recent presentation at the Communications Day Auckland Summit 26-27 July 2011.
Open Access
Broadband in New Zealand: Assessing the Commissioner's Recommendations
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2003) Howell, Bronwyn
Bronwyn Howell presents an overview of the issues facing consumers, broadband providers and regulators in October, 2003.
Open Access
Broadband Penetration: Does it Matter and does it require Local Loop Unbundling?
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2006) Howell, Bronwyn
Recent weeks have seen considerable controversy regarding the government's decision to unbundle the local loop. First Bronwyn Howell's select committee submission criticised the robustness of the analysis underpinning the unbundling decision suggesting that the case for both greater broadband participation and unbundling in New Zealand remained to be made.
Open Access
Broadband Regulation & Government Investment in Ultrafast Fibre Broadband Networks: Evidence from New Zealand
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2013) Howell, Bronwyn
Howell, Bronwyn recently attended the 2013 European Regional Conference of the International Telecommunications Society, held in Florence, Italy from 20-23 October.
Open Access
Broadband Uptake and Infrastructure Regulation: Evidence from the OECD Countries
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2002) Howell, Bronwyn
Policy organizations such as the OECD and the EU have placed much emphasis on the role of local loop unbundling as a regulatory tool in stimulating the rollout and uptake of broadband technologies and consequently promoting the accrual of economic benefits from electronic commerce. However there is mounting evidence that local loop unbundling has been less successful in promoting broadband rollout and uptake than competition both between duplicate networks of the same technology and between competing technology platforms. OECD evidence of cross-country broadband rollout and uptake supports this contention. Cable modem access and uptake generally exceed that of DSL even in countries practicing local loop unbundling and incountries where no such policy is in force DSL uptake significantly exceeds cable modem uptake. This paper argues that content availability and a cost-benefit trade-off supported by bundled products combining access and content has stimulated demand for the cable product thereby creating competitive pressure on DSL offerings. While local loop unbundling posits faster response to this competitive pressure the OECD data provide little evidence to suggest that the primary driver is infrastructure availability. Rather the evidence implies that application cost-benefit tradeoffs are the primary drivers of broadband uptake. The paper further argues that overall low levels of broadband uptake reflect a fundamental lack of current applications utilising the high speed and high capacity of broadband to meet functional substitution requirements of users in such a way that the benefits of adopting broadband technologies to support information exchange exceed the increased costs. Unless such cost-effective functional substitution user applications are available then the optimal time to invest in broadband for both users and infrastructure providers will be delayed in order to exploit lower costs better technology and the holding cost of interest. Policies that promote infrastructure availability in isolation from the demand-driven applications that utilise this capacity run the risk of encouraging inefficient investment decisions.
Open Access
Building Best Practices Broadband in New Zealand: Bringing Infrastructure Supply and Demand Together
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2003) Howell, Bronwyn
This paper adopts a productivity-based approach to assess the state of the New Zealand broadband market. This approach presumes that broadband penetration is a proxy for the ultimate objective of increased economic and social benefit which can be measured as increases in productivity. The state of the market is examined from the technology-agnostic perspective of competition for the provision of broadband services in terms of availability and price. This is then juxtaposed with a detailed analysis of New Zealand broadband purchase and utilization behaviors. Broadband purchase is seen in this analysis as merely another technology that may enable increased productivity from the use of information exchange over the Internet.
Open Access
Can continuous disclosure improve the performance of State-Owned Enterprises?
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2011) Talosaga, Talosaga; Heatley, David; Howell, Bronwyn
In January 2010 the New Zealand Government introduced a continuous disclosure regime for State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) modelled on the regime applying to publicly-listed companies (PLCs). The government sees continuous disclosure increasing the transparency of SOEs and that this will lead to improved financial performance by SOEs. We analyse the traditional rationales for continuous disclosure in PLCs and find that it is not axiomatic that a continuous disclosure regime designed for PLCs overlaid onto an SOE will offer the same incentives for performance improvement. The differences in owner identity and governance relationships in SOEs and the absence of a market for the trading of shares substantially weaken the performance improvement effect of the disclosure instrument in SOEs. In the absence of share trading it is not clear how a failure to disclose by SOE managers could be detected. Furthermore under the New Zealand arrangements the sanctions for SOE failure to disclose are very weak. This suggests that it is both easier for and more likely that SOE managers will withhold material information relative to their PLC counterparts. The hypothesis appears confirmed by a matched-pair comparison of disclosures by SOEs and private sector firms in the first year of the SOE continuous disclosure regime.
Open Access
Catching-Up in Broadband Regressions: Does Local Loop Unbundling Policy Lead to Material Increases in OECD Broadband Uptake?
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2008) Zhang, Wei; Boyle, Glenn; Howell, Bronwyn
Local loop unbundling has been widely promulgated by policy-makers as a significant factor stimulating broadband uptake and therefore an essential component of a developing 'information economy'. Whilst empirical evidence is sparse and at best equivocal in respect of a consistent positive and statistically significant effect a recent study commissioned and published by the OECD does find evidence of such effects. When correcting for omitted variables correlated data and methodological inconsistencies our analysis using the models and data from this report instead support the contention that LLU's contribution to the level of national broadband uptake is materially very small and not statistically significant. Continued advocacy for the policy as a stimulant for broadband uptake on the basis of the OECD-published report is misguided.
Open Access
Comments on the 'Crafar Farms Counterfactual'
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2012) Howell, Bronwyn
A subsequent version of this paper was published in the New Zealand Law Journal [2012] NZLJ 108, April 2012. Also, The National Business Review published Bronwyn's update article after Justice Forrie Miller's decision on 20 April. Link: http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/unpacking-crafar-controversy-117220
Open Access
Comments to Federal Communications Commission in response to Broadband Study Conducted by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2009) Howell, Bronwyn
Comments to the Federal communications Commission Washington DC on Broadband Study conducted by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. NPB Public Notice #13; GN Docket Numbers 09-47; 09-51; 09-137.Prepared by Bronwyn Howell November 13 2009.
Open Access
Competition & Government Network Subsidies: Enemies or Allies?
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2013) Howell, Bronwyn
This presentation looks at: Discussion of peculiarly grid regulation issues A quick stock take of the state of 'onr market': particularly concerning the interisland link Competition and pricing the HVDC interconnection
Open Access
Competition and Government Network Subsidies: Enemies or Allies?
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2013) Howell, Bronwyn
Presented at the Technical University of Eindhoven November 7, 2013
Open Access
Competition and Regulation Policy in Antipodean Government-Funded Ultrafast Broadband Network Markets
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2011) Howell, Bronwyn
Bronwyn Howell's presentation to the International Telecommunications Society European Regional Conference held in Budapest 20-22 September 2011.
Open Access
Competition and Regulation Policy in Antipodean Government-Funded UltraFast Fibre Broadband Markets
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2012) Howell, Bronwyn
Both the Australian and New Zealand governments have committed to spend substantial sums in order to bring forward the nationwide deployment of ultra-fast fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband networks. With deployment proceeding apace, two significant questions have arisen regarding the economic, commercial and political rationale for the Australian and New Zealand governments‟ decisions. The first is why the respective governments are assuming a central role in the design, financing, deployment and (in Australia‟s case) operation of a nationwide network of a specific technology type, given that such intervention is at significant variance with both recent international industry policy and practice advocated by international agencies such as the OECD and the ITU, and the recent policy and regulatory history in both countries. The second is how these new Government-funded networks will affect the nature of competitive interaction in the telecommunications (broadband) industry in their respective countries. This paper addresses these questions. First it traces the development of the Australian and New Zealand fibre investment policies in the context of international competition policy orthodoxy. It then examines the competition and regulation policies that will govern the insertion of the respective government-funded fibre networks into environments where both legacy policies and technological developments have shaped, and will continue to shape, the evolution of the respective telecommunications sectors. The analysis finds that political, rather than economic imperatives have dominated the government investment decision in both countries. The Australian investment has been accompanied by a comprehensive set of competition and regulation policies aligned with maximising the likelihood of fibre uptake, but both the up-front costs and political risks are high. The New Zealand initiative is lower-cost initially, but lacks clear over-arching competition and regulation policy objectives to guide sector development. The result is a fragmented regulatory regime and a range of contradictory and confusing incentives for all sector participants that will inevitably increase the economic costs of the project and lead to delays in fibre network uptake. Consequently, the Antipodean „experiments‟ in government funding of fibre networks are unlikely to offer good models of either policy or process for other jurisdictions.
Open Access
Competition and Regulation Policy in Antipodean Government-Funded UltraFast Fibre Broadband Markets
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2012) Howell, Bronwyn
Both the Australian and New Zealand governments have committed to spend substantial sums in order to bring forward the nationwide deployment of ultra-fast fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband networks. With deployment proceeding apace two significant questions have arisen regarding the economic commercial and political rationale for the Australian and New Zealand governments' decisions. The first is why the respective governments are assuming a central role in the design financing deployment and (in Australia's case) operation of a nationwide network of a specific technology type given that such intervention is at significant variance with both recent international industry policy and practice advocated by international agencies such as the OECD and the ITU and the recent policy and regulatory history in both countries. The second is how these new Government-funded networks will affect the nature of competitive interaction in the telecommunications (broadband) industry in their respective countries. This paper addresses these questions. First it traces the development of the Australian and New Zealand fibre investment policies in the context of international competition policy orthodoxy. It then examines the competition and regulation policies that will govern the insertion of the respective government-funded fibre networks into environments where both legacy policies and technological developments have shaped and will continue to shape the evolution of the respective telecommunications sectors. The analysis finds that political rather than economic imperatives have dominated the government investment decision in both countries. The Australian investment has been accompanied by a comprehensive set of competition and regulation policies aligned with maximising the likelihood of fibre uptake but both the up-front costs and political risks are high. The New Zealand initiative is lower-cost initially but lacks clear over-arching competition and regulation policy objectives to guide sector development. The result is a fragmented regulatory regime and a range of contradictory and confusing incentives for all sector participants that will inevitably increase the economic costs of the project and lead to delays in fibre network uptake. Consequently the Antipodean 'experiments' in government funding of fibre networks are unlikely to offer good models of either policy or process for other jurisdictions.
Open Access
Competition and Regulatory Implications of a Vodafone-TelstraClear Merger: First Thoughts
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2012) Howell, Bronwyn
If the mooted takeover of TelstraClear (TCL) by Vodafone is to go ahead it will be the most significant non-regulatory structural change in the New Zealand telecommunications marketplace since the merger of TelstraSaturn and Clear Communications in December 2001. The merger is a game-changer because it would lead to the creation of a fully vertically integrated telecommunications company providing a complete range of fixed and mobile networks (at least in the areas where TCL's cable network exists) a matter of merely months after New Zealand's incumbent integrated operator Telecom New Zealand (TCNZ) was 'required' to structurally separate its fixed line network from its retail and mobile operations. The implications for both of the separated TCNZ firms (new) Telecom and Chorus are not trivial. There are also likely to be some significant challenges arising for both regulation and the Government's new Ultrafast Broadband (UFB) network from the presence of a strong integrated multi-infrastructure provider.
Open Access
Competition, Regulation and Broadband Diffusion: the Case of New Zealand
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2006) Howell, Bronwyn
AbstractNew Zealand offers a through-provoking case study of the effects of different competition and regulatory policies on broadband diffusion rates. Despite having one of the highest rates of Internet connection and usage in the OECD widely available broadband infrastructure and low prices broadband uptake per capita languishes in the bottom third of the OECD. Whilst low uptake has typically been attributed to competition and regulatory factors associated with New Zealand's 'light-handed' regulatory regime this chapter proposes that the most likely reason is a combination of legacy demand-side regulations in particular the tariff options for voice telephony and limited value being derived by residential consumers from the small range of applications currently necessitating broadband connections. The New Zealand case illustrates the effect that legacy regulations can have on the diffusion of new technologies and indicates a need for more research on the effect of telecommunications industry regulations on demand-side uptake factors.