The OECD Communications Outlook presents the most recent comparable data on the performance of the communications sector in OECD countries and on their policy frameworks.

The OECD Communications Outlook 2005 presents the most recent comparable data on the performance of the communication sector and related policy frameworks in OECD countries.

The 2001 Communications Outlook presents the most recent comparable data on the performance of the communication sector in OECD countries and on their policy frameworks. The data provided in this report map the first two years of competition for many countries that recently opened their markets.

1. 1 Summary This thesis intends to answer three questions: First, what is a lead market; second, what constitutes a lead market, and third, how companies can harness lead markets to generate global innovations. Considering the international, cross-border diffu sion of innovations one can observe that a particular technological design such as the facsimile machine, the personal computer or the mobile cellular telephone is often adopted by one country or region much earlier than by other countries which subsequently follow this country, which I will call the lead market. A lead market is defined as a country that adopts an innovation that is subsequently adopted worldwide. When different designs of an innovation compete internationally, the design preferred in the lead market becomes the global dominant design. The study suggests a theoretical explanation for the phenomena of lead markets and collects empirical evidence from a detailed case study of the cellular mobile tele of an innovation design adopted first phone industry. The international diffusion by the lead market, i. e. subsequent adoption of an innovation design preferred in the lead market by other countries, can be put down to the special market context in the lead market. The market context includes demand preferences, the environ mental condition and the degree of competition. Multinational firms are often confronted not only with varying market acceptance of new products and processes from country to country, but with national prefer ences for particular specifications of an innovation, i. e.

David O. Loomis Illinois State University The explosive growth of the Internet has caught most industry experts off guard. While data communications was expected to be the "wave of the future," few industry observers foresaw how rapid the change in focus from voice communications towards data would be. Understanding the data communications revolution has become an urgent priority for many in the telecommunications industry. Demand analysis and forecasting are critical tools to understanding these trends for both Internet access and Internet backbone service. Businesses have led residential customers in the demand for data services, but residential demand is currently increasing exponentiall y. Even as business demand for data communications is becoming better understood, residential broadband access demand is still largely unexplored. Cable modems and ADSL appear to be the current residential broadband choices yet demand elasticities and econometric model-based forecasts for these services are not currently available. The responsiveness of customers to price and income changes and customer's perceptions of the tradeoff in product characteristics between cable modems and ADSL is largely unknown. Demand for Internet access is derived from the demand for applications which utilize this access; access is not demanded independent of its usage. Thus it is important to understand Internet applications in order to understand the demand for access.

By providing the latest information on mobile phone pricing structures and trends, this book highlights a number of areas for policy review and decision.