To Share or Not to Share? The Impact of Mobile Network Sharing for Consumers and Operators

Next-generation networks: Necessity of edge sharing

“…In light of the increased difficulties of promoting facilities-based competition and industry consolidation at multiple service provider levels (among MNOs, digital platform providers, and device/ancillary service providers) , the necessity for policymakers to embrace a richer perspective on NSAs among service providers has increased. This necessity has been emphasized by a growing body of economic research investigating these NSAs among service providers; it has shown that under most conditions and those that have prevailed in practice, NSAs have tended to be efficiency and welfare-enhancing (e.g., Maier-Rigaud et al, 2020;Pápai et al, 2020;Koutroumpis et al, 2021).…”

“…A key example is the sharing of towers by MNOs that helped promote the emergence of independent tower companies as significant players in the industry. Economics research on NSAs has identified the importance of TowerCos, while acknowledging that more research is needed to understand how they should fit into the industry economics and policy challenges associated with managing the transition to 5G (Mölleryd et al, 2014;Koutroumpis et al, 2021).…”

The Impact of Shared Telecom Infrastructure on Digital Connectivity and Inclusion

“…In developing countries, this challenge is compounded with low ability to pay for connectivity services by end-users. This has resulted in the development of shared infrastructure business models (Strusani & Houngbonon, 2020), both bilateral agreements between network operators (Koutroumpis et al, 2021) or multilateral agreements through independent infrastructure operators (Houngbonon et al, 2021a).…”

“…Shared telecom infrastructure, whereby telecom service operators rely on the same network infrastructure to serve end-users, has the potential to improve service affordability and support network investment while preserving or boosting service-based competition (Koutroumpis et al, 2021). By reducing the cost of network deployment and operations for telecom operators and improving their balance sheet, shared infrastructure can accelerate the expansion of high-speed broadband network, potentially increasing availability and quality of digital connectivity for end-users.…”

“…In this study, we focus on shared telecom infrastructure as an alternative to infrastructure-based competition. Other studies like Koutroumpis et al (2021) evaluate the effects of shared telecom infrastructure, but focus on bilateral sharing, whereas this paper considers multilateral infrastructure sharing, a growing trend in the telecom sector.…”