Competition Policy
Competition and the Mobile Sector
Traditional mobile voice services are now being supplemented by mobile broadband, which has the capacity to transform national economies quite as much as mobile voice has done.
There is particular potential for change in developing countries, which lack the fixed telecoms networks that have been ubiquitous in Europe, North America and elsewhere for decades.
The report
A GSMA report ‘Competition and the Mobile Sector – in Developed and Developing Countries’ draws on the lessons of mobile development in richer countries to reach conclusions about how mobile operators should be regulated elsewhere – in the best interests of their customers and of the economics which they serve.
The potential
The report does not ignore the differences between developed and developing countries in penetration rates, GDP per capita, the availability of capital and so on, but argues that one consideration is common to all countries: mobile communications forms a sector which is potentially vibrantly competitive, even if it made up of a comparatively small number of firms. If governments ignore this potential and over-regulate the sector, they can put back the spread of mobile voice and broadband for many years, and do considerable harm to their economies.
