Telecommunications Pricing: Theory and Practice

The past decade has seen a surge of pricing innovations in the U.S. telecommunications industry. This book systematically reviews recent innovations in the economic theory of pricing and extends results to the conditions that characterize telecommunications markets. The authors develop and illuminate the normative theory of pricing--with its objectives of social welfare, economic efficiency and fairness--and compare it with the practice of business and regulators.

The past decade has witnessed a surge of pricing innovations in the US telecommunications industry. This volume systematically reviews recent innovations in the economic theory of pricing and extends results to conditions that characterize telecommunications markets. It then examines the implementation of normative pricing theory in selected US telephone tariffs. The experience accumulated in the United States provides a rich and diverse data base and a laboratory for examining the practical consequences of pricing innovations. Throughout this volume the objective is to develop and illuminate the relationships between the normative economic theory of pricing--with its objectives of social welfare, economic efficiency, and fairness--and telecommunications pricing as it is practiced by business and regulators. In particular, the new pricing schemes are related to the theory of multiproduct and nonlinear pricing. The book describes the welfare and competitive properties of such pricing schemes and draws conclusions for future pricing problems in the areas of broadband networks and open network architecture. Many of the general theoretical pricing principles and lessons from US pricing experience should prove directly applicable to telecommunications services in other countries and to other industries, including electricity and natural gas supply, air and rail transportation, and postal and parcel services.