A new framework for content regulation - getting the post-Leveson deal right

Tim Suter has authored a short paper on the changing role of content regulation in a post-Leveson world.

You can download the paper here.

Are traffic charges needed to avert a coming capex catastrophe?

The net neutrality debate is now gathering steam in Europe, both at the Commission level and in member states. Against this background, four European telcos commissioned a report from AT Kearney, to support their opposition to net neutrality regulation. This report, A Viable Future Model for the Internet, claims that carriers are facing ballooning capex requirements to fund the growth of internet traffic and that the best way to address this structural problem is via traffic charges to online service providers.

In response Robert Kenny has written a paper, Are traffic charges need to avert a coming capex catastrophe?, that takes a critical look at the AT Kearney report, considering it from technical, economic and regulatory perspectives.

It received several positive reviews, and has been cited by BEREC (the umbrella body of European regulators), ARCEP (the French regulator) and the Norwegian Posts & Telecoms Authority. 

You can download the report here.

Avoiding a regulatory chimera

In this paper for Chorus, Brian Williamson reviews the proposed approach to fibre regulation in New Zealand which would involve a combination of an anchor product, revenue cap and passive access (on commercial terms). The paper concludes that the proposed set of remedies would be overly constraining on service and pricing flexibility, and that a lower service level anchor product alone would be sufficient, without the addition of a revenue cap.

Bang or a whimper? The next Communications Act

This short paper by Kip Meek discusses some of the considerations for the next Communications Act.

The paper can be downloaded here.

Beyond COVID-19 lockdown: A Coasean approach with optionality

Brian Williamson published a paper in Economic Affairs in June 2020 on the economics of controls versus price signals to manage COVID-19 transmission taking account of the reciprocal nature of the externality and heterogeneity of individual costs and benefits. If COVID-19 becomes endemic long-term ongoing measures, beyond vaccination, may be required and the considerations in the paper may be even more relevant in the post crisis phase