Traditional Telecommunication Services Research Articles

COVID-19 and changes in content usage behavior: The case of South Korea

This study examines changes in content usage time due to the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea using Korean Media Panel data for the period 2011–2020 and explores the reasons for these changes. This study focuses on four principal contents: television programs, movies/videos/user-created content, traditional telecommunication services, and chatting/messenger/social network services. The empirical results indicate an increase in usage time for the four principal contents, as well as total content usage time because of the pandemic. The results also show that average Korean people stayed longer at home after the onset of the pandemic, leading to an increase in the time spent on all the principal contents, except for traditional telecommunication services, as well as an increase in total content usage time. Furthermore, this study suggests that whereas the effect of the pandemic on television program viewing time was mainly attributable to changes in time spent at home because of the pandemic, the effect on other contents was mainly caused by non-location-related factors. This study predicts changes in content usage time after the end of the pandemic and provides strategic suggestions.

New determinants of spectrum price in a 5G world

ABSTRACT The theoretical models presented in the article establish the possibility that reduced congestion in unlicenced bands can reduce the profits of telecommunications operators, and consequently, depress spectrum prices. Further, certain modes of deploying licenced and unlicenced spectrum bands to provide services may render competitive dynamics uncertain, unpredictable, and unstable. Finally, the advent of Content and Application Providers (CAPs) providing substitutes or complements to traditional telecommunications services can also reduce operator profits. On the other hand, benign impacts on operator profits and spectrum prices cannot be ruled out. Given these possibilities, an empirical analysis is carried out to examine the impact of the participation of CAPs and the reduced congestion in unlicenced networks on spectrum prices. The variables of VOIP fixed-line subscribtions and mobile broadband density are used as proxies for the increased usage of unlicenced spectrum and the entry of CAPs as providers of substitutes and complements. These variables are consistently significant in our analysis indicating that there are indeed new drivers determining spectrum prices. Policy implications of the findings are enumerated.

Impact of Mobile Phone Services on the Traditional Telecommunication Services in India

Background/Purpose: Telecommunication is a principal element in the current technology-driven world. The impact of mobile phone services over traditional services is the key to India witnessing the Digital revolution. This paper highlights the mobile phone services that have impacted the traditional services and the digital penetration that has been observed in almost every sector. Design/Methodology/Approach: This study is mainly based on the data collected from secondary sources of information. The secondary data sources are from annual reports of the telecom sector and websites. It is an explorative research case study that shows the emergence of mobile phone services over traditional telephone services and performs PESTLE analysis. Findings/Result: Based on the study, India has moved into a digital population to a great extent through the advancements in technology and internet services through data packs and broadband connections. The mobile phone services along with the Telecom sector in India have played a crucial role in this transformation with connectivity, affordability, and technological change. Originality/Value: This paper analyzes and interprets the data collected from the past 10 years with respect to telecommunications services and mobile services in India. Based on the findings and their interpretation, new knowledge in the form of recommendations/suggestions is presented. Paper Type: Industry Analysis as a Research Case Study.

Rediseño institucional para el cierre de brecha residual de telecomunicaciones en Perú: Una tercera vía de intervención para la emergencia de redes comunitarias sostenibles

The problem of the lack of connectivity in a large part of the world has been further exposed due to the pandemic COVID-19; particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, including in Peru. We have witnessed the lack of Internet access limits the conditions of development and widens the social and economic gaps among the people connected in urban areas and those who are not connected in rural areas. This problem has a multidimensional nature and arises from several underlying and structural causes that have been widely diagnosed so far. In this regard, this paper is focused on Peru, but it is potentially applicable to Latin America and the Caribbean. The new contribution is the definition of the residual gap of rural telecommunications (“residual gap”), understood as the group of localities that are not either prioritized or to be prioritized by the private sector or the traditional public interventions in the short and medium term. Likewise, we have analyzed the effectiveness of the current institutional design to deal with the connectivity gap and have proposed the incorporation of a third channel for the whole “residual gap”: a model of bottom-up governance for the emergency of sustainable community networks. According to its characteristics, this third channel demands the reconfiguration of the roles in the different social classes and enables the inclusion of territoriality and interculturality approaches in a wide range of geographical spaces. Finally, even though the localities that are part of the residual gap are characterized by a range of adverse conditions for the provision of traditional telecommunication services or others, for the rural Peruvian case, a great residual gap has a huge community network, beyond telecommunications (e.g. rural communities, indigenous populations, water and irrigation associations, etc.). This previous condition is a great advantage for the successful application of the model of community networks proposed in the institutional redesign. Its identification of opportunities is the third contribution of this paper.

OTT regulation framework in the context of CJEU Skype case and European Electronic Communications Code

The telecommunications services sector is one of the most dynamically developing segments of the contemporary economy. At the same time, it is undergoing constant change, the result of its adaptation to the needs of modern digital services and the expectations of users. In practice, traditional telecommunications services are being increasingly replaced by those that offer equivalent functionality but are provided via the Internet. Examples of this type of service are VoIP telephony, instant messengers and online chat. This group of services is collectively referred to as OTT.The growing popularity of OTT services not only affects the shape of the telecommunications market, but, from the point of view of legislatures and market regulators, has also led to a number of practical problems. One of them is how to apply a EU regulatory framework established for the electronic communications sector to modern OTT services. Recently, this problem has become an object of interest to both the CJEU and the EU legislature.The purpose of this article is to discuss the effects of the recent Skype adjudication on the regulation of the OTT sector, including the pending entry into force of the European Electronic Communications Code. The analysis considers the technical and regulatory background of issues relating to the judgment, the ongoing legislative work and the importance of the judgment in practice. Ambiguities in interpretation are also identified and discussed, in particular those relating to the attempt to apply the Skype judgment and the entire regulatory framework to OTT services.These aspects will be discussed from the perspective of the protection of users' privacy, an important part of the provision of electronic communications services. The choice of this aspect of OTT services regulation would seem to be particularly apt in light of the ongoing reform of the EU data protection model, which will include the new e-privacy regulation currently being drafted.

Disrupting clinical education: what could, or should, this mean?

Disrupting clinical education: what could, or should, this mean?

An Analysis of Consumer Preferences for Over-The-Top (OTT) Communications Services and Mobile Telephony: A Case of Thailand

This paper examines consumer preferences for voice calling using two methods via a mobile phone — over-the-top (OTT) communications services employing the Internet, and traditional mobile telephony using a cellular network. Due to its two-sided business model, OTT communications essentially offer services to users at no cost, enabling them to successfully compete with traditional telecommunications services. However, there are tradeoffs in using OTT services; for example, service quality is unsatisfactory compared to mobile telephony, and using OTT requires an Internet connection, potentially leading to additional costs. The objective of this paper is to understand consumer behavior in choosing between the two services in different situations of use — formal and casual occasional — and how they prioritize these attributes; service quality, price and Internet connection requirement. A discrete choice experiment was conducted in Thailand in 2019 using a web-based survey and face-to-face interviews. Four-hundred and forty-four responses were received, with respondents valuing service quality the most for both occasions, followed by price and then Internet connection. However, in the situation of formal usage, consumers valued service quality to a significantly higher degree than prices compared to casual use situations. Additionally, willingness to pay for better quality under the formal occasion was found to be 4 Baht per minute, whereas it was 1.4 Baht under the casual situation. Hence, users tend to use different services depending on the occasion of use — consumers tend to call using mobile telephony, the service quality of which is considered to be better, in formal occasions, whereas they use OTT for calls in casual situations. Users are also willing to pay for better quality service in so-called freemium employed services. Implications of these results and policy recommendations are also discussed in this paper.

Competition in traditional telecommunications markets and OTT

Purpose – Economic activity is based increasingly on the Internet. This development generates multiple benefits for consumers but also competition challenges for operators and regulatory authorities.
 Methodology/approach/design – The study considers the recent evolution of the traditional voice, messaging and video telecommunications services, as well as OTT of similar functionality that coexist in the markets with them. Based on the literature review, the degree of substitution and / or complementarity between traditional services and OTT is analyzed from a demand perspective.
 Findings – No conclusions can be set, as certain conditions of consumption substitution is observed, while in others, complementarity between services. From the perspective of suppliers, there is a certain complementarity that is reflected in a greater number of associations between operators and OTT.

Market power, regulatory convergence, and the role of data in digital markets

The increased economic importance of digital services has profoundly changed the power structure in telecommunications and media markets. Although these services sometimes directly compete with traditional telecommunications services, the regulatory obligations for both players differ significantly. This article discusses three important areas deemed relevant in order to define a coherent regulatory framework and to account for the specific peculiarities of digital markets: First, challenges associated with assessing market power in digital markets. Second, challenges in harmonizing different regulatory obligations for digital services, and third, the vital role of data and data protection in the context of data-driven business models.

Big data in telecommunication operators: data, platform and practices

In the age of information explosion, big data has brought challenges but also great opportunities that support a wide range of applications for people in all walks of life. Faced with the continuous and intense competition from OTT service providers, traditional telecommunications service providers have been forced to undergo enterprise transformation. Fortunately, these providers have natural and unique advantages in terms of both data sources and data scale, all of which give them a competitive advantage. Multiple foreign mainstream telecom operators have already applied big data for their own growth, from internal business to external applications. Armed with big data, domestic telecom companies are also innovating business models. This paper will introduce three aspects of big data in the telecommunications industry. First, the unique characteristics and advantages of communications industry big data are discussed. Second, the development of the big data platform architecture is introduced in detail, which incorporates five crucial sub-systems. We highlight the data collection and data processing systems. Finally, three internal or external application areas based on big data analysis are discussed, namely basic business, network construction, and intelligent tracing. Our work sheds light on how to deal with big data for telecommunications enterprise development.

A lightweight convergent personal mobile service delivery approach based on phone book

SUMMARYMobile phone users are demanding an efficient convergent communication approach for efficient communication and information sharing with their real life social circles. Unfortunately, the existing telecom services and the popular Internet services are not organically integrated to provide convenient convergent services. To overcome this issue, one of the promising convergent communication services considered by telecom carriers is RCS (Rich Communication Suite). However, existing issues, such as insufficient interoperability among different operators, shortage of terminals and heavy dependence on large‐scale IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) network deployment, mean that it will take time to implement RCS across worldwide networks and for it to become a service equally universal as voice and short message. Instead of a heavyweight RCS solution, in this paper, we propose a lightweight, quick deployment mobile phone book application system based on cloud computing without a fully deployed IP multimedia subsystem infrastructure, which seamlessly integrates traditional telecommunication services, instant messaging services, social networking services and automatic contact information management. Based on this, ‘Telco‐OTT’ service provision approach, telecom carriers can allow their subscribers to enjoy conveniently the rich convergent personal service experience quickly without a large initial investment. Thus, it is a low‐risk opportunity for telecom carriers to meet subscriber demand for advanced user‐centric convergent service features. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

국내 인터넷기반 방송서비스의 보안 모델 설계

최근 통칭 IPTV라고 불리는 새로운 개념의 텔레비전 서비스가 활성화되고 있다. VoD(Video On Demand)라고 불리는 콘텐츠 제공방식은 시청자들이 보고 싶은 프로그램을 시간에 구애받지 않고 원하는 시간에 볼 수 있게 되었고, 그 외에도 여러 부가서비스들이 제공되어 사업자들이 새로운 방식으로 수익을 창출하게 되었다. 다양한 서비스를 제공 중인 IPTV는 IP를 기본으로 하여 서비스된다. IP와 방송의 융합으로 IP기반의 서비스에서 발생 했던 보안 위협이 IPTV에서도 발생 할 수 있다. 국제 IPTV 보안 권고안은 추상적이라 현장에 바로 적용시키기는 어려움이 많다. 본 논문에서는 표준 모델을 기반으로 서비스가 어떠한 위협에 노출되어 있는지, 서비스를 제공하는 과정에서 수집하는 사용자의 어떠한 개인정보가 노출될 위협에 있는지에 대해 알아보고 이 취약점들을 분석하여 한국형 보안 모델을 설계하였다. Internet Protocol Television(IPTV) is the use of an IP broadband network to deliver television (cable TV type) services to the end user. Traditional telecommunications service providers as well as alternate service providers and Internet service providers can utilize their IP networks (and broadband consumer access) to deliver broadcast TV, Video on Demand (VOD) and other Internet services to the consumer. As digital technologies progress, illegal copy and redistribution of IPTV content become easier and simpler. Therefore it is required to protect IPTV content or service. In this paper, we analyze the security threats and requirements. We also discuss related issues and solutions for IPTV.

The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP): An Evolutionary Study

The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) was devel- oped to control multi-media sessions on the Internet. Shortly after its debut as a standard in 1999, SIP was adopted by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) as the preferred signaling protocol for the Internet Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). This adoption provided a boost to the nascent protocol as traditional telecommunication services were interpreted in the context of the new protocol and as SIP introduced richer services in the form of instant messaging and rich presence to traditional telephony. In this paper, we study the evolution of the protocol from its roots to its use in operational networks today and the issues it faces in such networks. We also provide a glimpse to the continued progression of SIP in Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks and take a critical look at where SIP has succeeded, and more importantly, where it has failed to meet expectations.

Competitive relationships between traditional and contemporary telecommunication services in Taiwan

This study sets out to examine the competitive relationships that exist within the telecommunications market using the niche theory on the personal gratifications and system gratifications dimensions. The findings from the analysis of 363 survey responses indicate that traditional and contemporary telecommunication services offer different specializations to satisfy their consumers. Overall, mobile telecommunication services partially replace wired services, on personal gratifications dimensions in particular. The system gratifications dimensions of the wired telecommunication services facilitate the existence of wired services. New telecommunication services (3G and VoIP) partially replace old telecommunication services (home landline and 2G) in providing greater satisfaction in entertainment. The results also demonstrate that VoIP does not impose competitive displacement effects on home landline, 2G, and 3G services. Limitation and suggestions are discussed.

A CONSUMER-WELFARE APPROACH TO NETWORK NEUTRALITY REGULATION OF THE INTERNET

“Network neutrality” is the shorthand for a proposed regime of economic regulation for the Internet. Because of the trend to deliver traditional telecommunications services, as well as new forms of content and applications, by Internet protocol (IP), a regime of network neutrality regulation would displace or subordinate a substantial portion of existing telecommunications regulation. If the United States adopts network neutrality regulation, other industrialized nations probably will soon follow. As a result of their investment to create next-generation broadband networks, network operators have the ability to innovate inside the network by offering both senders and receivers of information greater bandwidth and prioritization of delivery. Network neutrality regulation would, among other things, prevent providers of broadband Internet access service (such as digital subscriber line (DSL) or cable modem service) from offering a guaranteed, expedited delivery speed in return for the payment of a fee. The practical effect of banning such differential pricing (called “access tiering” by its critics) would be to prevent the pricing of access to content or applications providers according to priority of delivery. To the extent that an advertiser of a good or service would be willing to contract with a network operator for advertising space on the network operator’s affiliated content, another practical effect of network neutrality regulation would be to erect a barrier to vertical integration of network operators into advertising-based business models that could supplement or replace revenues earned from their existing usage-based business models. Moreover, by making end-users pay for the full cost of broadband access, network neutrality regulation would deny broadband access to the large number of consumers who would not be able to afford, or who would not have a willingness to pay for, what would otherwise be less expensive access. For example, Google is planning to offer broadband access to end-users for free in San Francisco by charging other content providers for advertising. This product offering is evidently predicated on the belief that many end-users demand discounted or free broadband access that is paid for by parties other

HOUSEHOLD-USE VERSUS BUSINESS-USE DEMAND DIFFUSION OF TELEPHONE AND INTERNET ACCESS SERVICE IN KOREA

It is well known that the diffusion of the Internet over society has been faster than that of the traditional telecommunication service such as the telephone. There are some differences between the demand diffusion patterns of telephone services and the Internet as well as among the demand attributes, thus we focus on these differences. With each service, demand attributes comprise of business-use and household-use. In particular, Loglet analysis is used for comparing the diffusion pattern demand-attributes for the services. Firstly, from the analysis, during the overall reference period, the diffusion rate of the Internet is larger than that of telephone. Secondly, the gap between the diffusion rates of household-use and business-use in the Internet is much larger than it is for the telephone. Thirdly, the estimated potential demands of the Internet household-use are surprisingly similar to the present number of telephone users. We also examine country-specific factors underlying the diffusion of Internet access service in Korea.

Octavia: A software platform for next-generation services

Telecommunication operators demand open interfaces on network equipment so that they can create their own custom services that interact with this equipment. The goal of the operator is differentiation from competitors by creating their own customized services with short market introduction times. The Parlay application programming interface (API) was designed to meet this need. However, the Parlay API alone is not sufficient to enable fast creation of customized services. To meet the operator's need, a comprehensive service framework is needed that supports the design, development, and deployment of services, and that takes the end user, service developer, service provider, and network equipment API into account. This paper describes the Octavia platform, which supports next-generation services that are a combination of both Internet services and traditional telecommunication services. The vision underlying the platform is the autonomy of the following key roles, service providers, service developers, end users, and network resource providers. Uncoupling these roles leads to flexibility in the many aspects of a telecommunication service, guaranteeing a smooth evaluation path for the future. The Octavia platform integrates the FRIENDS platform and network equipment that provides the Parlay API, such as the Lucent Technologies Softswitch (LSS). © 2003 Lucent Technologies Inc.

The (R)evolution of access networks for the information superhighway

Competition in deregulated telecommunication markets forces network operators to modernize their access networks-often called the "last mile" to the customer-to provide a mix of multimedia and traditional telecommunication services. Economics necessitate an evolutionary, step-by-step approach to migrate from the present access infrastructure-composed mainly of existing telephone networks and cable TV networks-to the ultimate information superhighway. At the end of the day, however, networks of different operators should provide interconnectivity for the same set of services. A system concept is described that drives access network technology toward a "common platform" with generic access methods, cognate routing and switching, and common, standardized communication protocols. Simulation results show some performance figures of the common platform concept. An implementation on a CATV network is presented as well.

Current trends in access and transport architectures for business customers

An increasing number of business customers are using broadband integrated access to provide high-performance connectivity for new services and applications, and to lower costs for traditional telecommunications services. This paper examines the origins of this trend and explores architectural approaches to meeting emerging customer requirements.

Current trends in access and transport architectures for business customers

An increasing number of business customers are using broadband integrated access to provide high-performance connectivity for new services and applications, and to lower costs for traditional telecommunications services. This paper examines the origins of this trend and explores architectural approaches to meeting emerging customer requirements.