• Reviewing global regulatory challenges
• Introduction to market sector drivers and regulation
• Political, economic, social, and technological impacts on regulation
• History & theories of regulation
• Traditional vs new converged environment regulation
• Consumer demands, protection, investment, and competition

• Role of economic reasoning in regulation
• Development and theory of economic regulation
• The emergence and nature of regulation
• Stages in the development of regulation
• The economics of markets
• Demand and consumer surplus
• Economic costs
• Economies of scale and scope
• Competition and efficiency
• Market failure
• Cost structures
• Externalities and network effects
• Information asymmetry
• Networks, markets and regulation
• The emerging market structure

This session looks at the logic of the overall framework of economic regulation, with an accent on the EU system.

• Focus on the key sources of market failure
• Ex ante and ex-post regulation
• The EU approach to competition policy
• Market definition and assessment, SMP
• Merger regulation
• Following the EU approach in other environments
• Two keystones: the persistent importance of costs and the development of competition policy in telecommunications

This session examines the nature and sources of market power, highlighting its social costs. The session also examines the practical concept of effective competition.

• Market power
• The costs of monopoly
• Price discrimination
• What is a market?
• Market behaviour and market power
• The strategic use of market power
• Anti-competitive behaviour
• Incumbency and market power
• Effective competition

This session looks at the remedies that can be imposed in order to counter market power and the ways in which the design of regulatory instruments can incorporate economic principles.

• Principles for the design of regulatory instruments
• Four rationales for regulation: options for action
• Regulation as a surrogate for competition
• Regulation to create competitive markets
• Regulation to police market behaviour
• Regulation where competition cannot achieve social objectives

Spectrum, as a fixed and essential resource, is central to modern regulation. This session will look at the ways in which spectrum allocation and assignment increasingly reflect economic principles.

• Economics of spectrum valuation
• Current valuation methodologies and tools
• Administrative pricing, beauty parades, auctions, hybrids
• Pros and cons of different approaches
• Taking into account USO objectives
• Spectrum re-farming
• Impact on competition, prices, investment and service provision
• Processes for licence renewal

Economic regulation often relies on cost modelling for the setting of prices for wholesale and retail services. This session will provide a reminder of how cost models are constructed and focus on the study of recent developments and controversies. Issues covered will include:

• Costs and the principles of network pricing
• Accounting separation purpose and implementation
• Cost methodologies
• Recovery of common costs
• Cost of capital
• Treatment of spectrum costs
• Externalities

A combination of examples of good and bad regulation with a rethink of regulation and technology

• The nature of technology: What it is and how it evolves
• Why technology is a key driver of regulation
• Regulatory technology tales: Examples of good & bad technology regulation
• Network industries & their generic technology structures
• Introduction to network theory and its use to characterise network industries technologies
• Regulating emerging technologies
• The policy context for innovation and technology
• Technology regulation and governance

Competition in mobile is often strong, but cost modelling has been hugely important for regulation of the mobile sector, particularly in relation to call termination rates. This session will cover some of the key economic debates and current issues affecting regulation of the mobile sector.

• Roaming charges and wholesale access
• Mobile telecommunications and competition
• The role of MVNO
• Fixed mobile convergence
• Next generation mobile
• Costing of call termination
• The call termination debate
• Bill & keep

This session looks at how growth of broadband has changed the competitive landscape and created new regulatory issues.

• Telecoms
• Mobile broadband
• Creation of competition in broadband
• Infrastructure and competition
• Structural separation
• Where does the idea of Universal Service now stand?
• Aviation
• Railway
• Are there growth externalities requiring regulatory action?

Regulators in many countries worry that past policies towards access regulation may have inhibited investment in next-generation infrastructure. This session will look at the basis of those concerns and compare the evidence from different regulatory regimes.

• The future LLU vs Fibre
• The EU experience; the US experience; the Japanese experience

This case study focuses on regulatory issues around market reviews and company and network mergers.

• Working in groups followed by presentations

Net neutrality is the principle whereby all information flowing across the internet should be treated equally. But with more people streaming data-rich video and the growth of social networking, the internet faces congestion concerns.

• “A bit is a bit is a bit”?
• The idea of ‘net neutrality’
• Network management
• Network pricing
• The innovation issue
• A competition problem?
• Regulation of the Internet?

In this session we will look at how recent technological, digital, macro-economic, industry changes and market changes have created new challenges for regulators.

• Convergence
• Cost orientation and network pricing
• Demand-related pricing
• Price discrimination and bundling
• Platforms and infrastructure
• Two-sided markets
• A change in regulatory direction?
• Types of regulatory models (no regulation, self-regulation, co-regulation, statutory regulation, meta regulation and regulatory networks