This paper qualitatively and quantitatively examines the effectiveness of regulations currently in place in the Korean mobile telecommunications market by comparing their intended objectives with the actual outcome, particularly with respect to the performance of market participants. The results show that the regulations have generally been effective in lowering the average revenue per user of carriers. However, the managed competition efforts of the government have also resulted in increased revenues for the top two carriers in the market without significantly affecting their general business operations.

The characteristics of the spectrum, which are necessary for mobile telecommunication services, may determine the advantage of operators' competition for mobile services. We have a focus on the possibility that there would be the core spectrum within the frequencies. We define the core spectrum of frequencies in terms of 4 criteria (global source/roaming, cost-effectiveness, the experience of utilization and the possibility of use). They are based on the aspects of applicative and economic effectiveness by not technological and but market conditions. We have explored the current core spectrum by using the stepwise selection from these criteria. Our result indicates that the core spectrum may be movable with the development of technology and the flow of time. The results of this paper could be practically used as the reasonable justifications of the policies for not only the competition management but also the alignment about the frequencies for mobile telecommunication.

As LTE service and smartphone are emerging as the mainstream of mobile communications market, the value and importance of mobile data service has been further increased. MNO(mobile network operator)s already recognized the data service as essential market needs, and have appealed to consumers based on various satisfaction elements of data service such as faster transmission speed, expended data volume provided as default, and introduction of unlimited plan. So, in the smartphone market where has been mature, investigating what service attributes affect users' selection of data service is very meaningful from the perspectives of both the industry and the academic. Under this background, this study explores determinants influencing consumer's choice for mobile data service and analyzes relative importance of the attributes among different type of users. The findings of this study makes us extend our understanding of consumer characteristics and their service needs in data service centric era, and it provides some implications for establishing telecommunications policies and business strategies.

This result demonstrates a gap exists in production efficiency level among domestic MNOs and implies that the policy to alleviate the gap among operators is required when establishing competitive policy in the future.First Author：한국전자통신연구원

Lately there are many approaches for decreasing the retail prices for mobile telecommunication in response to higher demand of the consumer welfare. Related on this perspective, there have been many disputes how the MTR (mobile termination rate)s from the whole market has influences on the consumer prices at the retail market. Therefore, we need a timely review about the possibility of the reduction of retail prices with MTR policies. The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between MTR and retail prices. For this purpose, we can identify three kinds of arguments by reviewing the previous literatures. We empirically analyze the relationship with latest European data and Korean annual data. Furthermore, we also examine whether the relationship would depend on the competition structure. The results imply that decreasing MTR would result in reduction of the retail prices but the effect would be enhanced by improvement of market concentration. †