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A pdf version of a soon to be presented paper on The Telecoms Boom and Bust by Professor Fransman is available below. More information about the related book is also available on the Telecoms Boom and Bust page.

Please also visit TelecomVisions's recent addition, a new section with detailed case studies of important Telecoms Operators. Among the companies profiled are Qwest, Level 3, Global Crossing, Thus and Atlantic Telecom. These reports examine the history, strategies and performance of selected new entrants in the US and European Telecoms industry.

We are also pleased to be able to bring you a new series of case studies on national incumbent Telecoms Operators, starting with a study of Deutsche Telekom by Klaus Rathe and a study of Telecom Italia by Ian Duff.

Any comments you may have on these contributions can be expressed within the Miscellaneous Workshop.

To view some of the articles in the table below you will need the Adobe Acrobat reader. Download the latest version here:

Martin Fransman - TelecomVisions.com
Mapping The Evolving Telecoms Industry: The Uses And Shortcomings Of The Layer Model
In this paper, forthcoming in TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY, Professor Fransman analyses some of the strengths and weaknesses of the Layer Model of the Telecommunications Industry used both in his book (TELECOMS IN THE INTERNET AGE: FROM BOOM TO BUST TO ...?, Oxford University Press, September 2002) and in the TelecomVisions.com web site.


The Telecoms Boom and Bust: Puzzles, Paradoxes and Processing, paper by Martin Fransman presented in a plenary session at the 14th Biennial Conference of the International Telecommunications Society, Seoul, Korea, August 2002.

The Impact of the 3G Mobile Licence Auctions
In this article, Professor Fransman discusses the key issues which much be addressed when analysing the likely impact of the 3G mobile licence auctions on consumers and operators in the mobile telecoms industry.

Evolution of the telecoms industry into the Internet Age
Analyses the forces driving the telecoms industry from its origins up to the new millenium. (51 pages)

David Harrington - Telecommunications Managers Association
Access for all? Spectrum auctions in the local loop
This article appeared in the journal info (Volume 2, No 4) which covered the auction debate. The Cave & Valletti article and a further article by Patricia Hewitt are also contained within this issue of the publication.

Jean-Luc Gaffard and Jackie Krafft - University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis and Institut Universitaire de France and CNRS-IDEFI
Telecommunications : understanding the dynamics of the organization of the industry
This paper focuses on the evolution of the telecommunications industry. The main purpose of the paper is to to sustain that the organization of the industry is progressively evolving towards an oligopoly structure. (42 pages)

Jon Sigurdson - Stockholm School of Economics
WAP OFF - Origin, Failure and Future
Why did WAP fail? In this paper Professor Jon Sigurdson, Professor at the Stockholm School of Economics, explains.

Kerry Coffman & Andrew Odlyzko - AT&T Labs (Shannon Laboratory), Florham Park, New Jersey
Internet growth: Is there a MooreÕs Law for data traffic?
The main conclusion from this detailed study is that internet traffic is likely to continue doubling each year for the next decade or so. (40 pages)

Martin Cave and Tommaso Valletti - Brunel University & London School of Economics
Are spectrum auctions ruining our grandchildren's future?
This article appeared in the journal info (Volume 2, No 4) which covered the auction debate.
Further articles by David Harrington and Patricia Hewitt are also contained within this issue of the publication.

Paul Klemperer - Oxford University
3/ Why every economist should learn some auction theory

2/ Auction Theory: A guide to the literature

1/ What really matters in auction design

Professor Nobuo Ikeda - Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry and GLOCOM
Beyond the Internet
This thought provoking paper from Professor Nobuo Ikeda suggests visions of what the Internet and related network-of-networks will look like in the face of bandwidth abundance. His article focuses on the use of IP and optical switching in the future of the Internet and telecommunications networks.

Professor Wang Xiangdong - Chinese Academy of Social Sciences & Guest Professor at the Stockholm School of Economics
Mobile Internet in China
China became the number one country in the world in terms of mobile subscriber base as at July 2001 when its user size increased to 120.6 million. It is very impressive to see that mobile telephony grows so quickly in China on the one hand and WAP fails to pave its way in the market on the other. However, there have been some important changes taking place in the Chinese mobile Internet field. Based on the background of China ’s telecommunications take-off in the last decade, this paper discusses issues in the mobile sector, with a special focus on progress to date. This paper is a part result of my academic visit to Sweden from August to October 2001.

Richard Langlois - The University of Connecticut
A Response to Fransman's Paper: The Evolution of the Telecommunications Industry into the Internet Age
This comment on the paper by Martin Fransman (above) was made by Professor Richard Langlois, a leading evolutionary economist from the University of Connecticut. The comments were made at the conference on 'Cognition and Evolution in the Theory of the Firm', Max Plank Institute, Jena, Germany, September 25-27, 2000.

Sadahiko Kano - TelecomVisions Staff
Technical Innovations, Standardization and Regional Comparison - A case study in mobile communications
This paper studies the relationship between technical innovations and standardisation, taking mobile communications as an example. (20 pages)
Please Note: Reprinted from Telecommunications Policy, Vol 24, No 4, p305-321, Copyright 2000, with permission from Elsevier Science.
The Copyright holders for this article specify that only single copies of the paper can be downloaded and printed for the reader's personal research and study.
Diagrams (2) from this article also available.