Connectivity opens economic possibilities. Broadband opens the possibility to connect millions via Internet. Economic Impact of broadband has been studied by various policy organizations and scholars. It is widely argued that, broadband technology can directly and indirectly engender economic activities in the region. Many of these arguments are based on various theories of change and innovation. Some scholars have used data at various levels to empirically ascertain the impact. However, the number of data driven research on this area has been small. Many researchers have used some aggregate macroeconomic indicators to ascertain the impact of use of broadband. However, these indicators such as GDP may not always successfully explain various aspects of quality of life of individuals in different societies. Along with that policy makers often debate on the variability of broadband bandwidth. Higher bandwidth should give better experience. Therefore, an important question is to ascertain whether or not variability of Broadband bandwidth is correlated with different aspects of quality of life (QoL). We endeavor to find an answer to this question via econometric estimations using a unique dataset from Sweden. Our hypothesis is based on the notion that, higher speed and reliable communication via broadband both in mobile and fixed form would engender new economic activities which in turn may shape various aspects of life. OECD describes, quality of life should consist of various indicators such as health, education, leisure, social connections, civic engagement and governance, environmental quality and personal security. Although access to high-speed networks may indirectly impact these variables, it is not yet obvious how much direct influence access to broadband might have on most of these indicators. (Lehr, Osorio, Gillet and Sirbu, 2005) attempted to ascertain the economic impact of broadband availability on the American society, using wage, rent, employment, industry mix. We posit that in this era of Internet of Things, connectivity without reliable and low bandwidth broadband may fail to impact on the society. We have used indicators such as education, economic growth, wage, rent, sector wise employment and industry mix, peoples’ commuting pattern, public participation as a collective measure of economic well-being. Our analysis also distinguishes between wired and wireless communications devices. The observations in our econometric models are of time series (years after introduction of technology) cross sectional nature (at municipalities levels). Independent variables are as follows: Broadband- variable indicating the number of people using internet at the ‘broadband level’ defined by a specific country, Technology - a binary variable that indicates mobile or wired connectivity, Speed -indicating the minimum broadband bandwidth (download rate at the last mile). As control variables, we introduce area specific fixed effect variables, and various other time specific demographic, socio-political and economic variables. A number of fixed effect regressions were employed to ascertain the impact of a. Having access to broadband at various speed and b. mobile vs. wired broadband, on the aforementioned economic activity variables. The dataset has around 1700 data points at municipality levels from years 2009 to 2015. The data are obtained from various sources that collect such data. Economic activity, demography and various other control variables are taken from Swedish Statistical Agency. Our initial findings indicate that broadband bandwidth variability has mixed impact on various aspects of quality of life. Mobile broadband speed has positive impact on English and Mathematics and negative impact on native language (in this case Swedish). However, the results show that reliable broadband coverage has positive impact on Mathematics and Swedish. This is may indicate that there may be a scarcity of educational materials in Swedish in comparison with English and Mathematics. Also, it might indicate that the materials at high speed are focused on entertainment rather than on education. We find that fixed broadband coverage has positive impact on total number of firms. However, mobile download speed does not have significant impact on number of start-ups or total number of firms. This is quite intuitive as firms rely on fixed connectivity. The estimations show that mobile broadband speed on average does not have significantly positive impact on job creation- both in service and manufacturing industry. Estimations indicate, mobile data speed may have negative impact on service sector if time specific idiosyncrasies are controlled. We also see that coverage of 10 Mbps has negative impact on job creation at the service sector. Our estimations categorize jobs into service and manufacturing sub-groups. However, most jobs in both the sub-groups require both skilled and unskilled labor. The decreasing trend may indicate that that broadband speed and coverage may have negative effect on jobs in the unskilled parts of these sectors. The negative impact of coverage is more prominent in the small cities than in the metropolitan and large cities. Overall, it might mean broadband speed is requiring more of high skill labor in all the job sectors and replacing low skill jobs. Municipalities that have higher mobile download speed has higher housing price. This might indirectly indicate that better mobile speed is a proxy for infrastructural acumen. Dwelling expenses rise in places where infrastructure is better. However, we do not see any significant impact of coverage or reliability variables. Mobile broadband speed does not have any significant impact on salary. This is intuitive as people probably do not rely on mobile data for work related issues. We see that municipalities with better coverage of 10 Mbps have seen less average salary. This may be an aggregate picture as municipalities are of various categories and have different types of job requirements. However, at the large cities broadband at 100 Mbps has positive impact on salary. As large cities are mostly the innovation hubs and job incubators, the results indicate that better and reliable coverage of high speed fixed broadband may increase high salaried jobs and in turn indicate scarcity of high skill labor. This indicates options for creation of more jobs for skilled labors. Mobile broadband speed has enabled people to work from distance and we see a positive impact of download speed on the increase in number of workplaces and people’s commute. This may indicate that the firms can now build workplaces at remote areas and still communicate. This may also mean that as mobile technology is improving, people are increasingly using data on the go for communication via video and audio. This in turn is encouraging them to travel further till they are able to communicate via their phones. We also see that better broadband coverage is increasing number of workplaces indicating that firms can now create facilities in places far apart and still can communicate and manage using broadband infrastructure. However, the most significant find is on the people’s commuting patter which we see in decrease with increase in reliable fixed connectivity. This indicates that broadband is maybe associated with decrease in physical travel for work related issues which can be a positive sign for environment. Our findings show that both mobile broadband speed and reliable connectivity have positive impact on public participation. People votes more in municipalities where mobile broadband speed is higher and fixed communication converge is better. This may indicate the positive impact of high connectivity and availability of information. The findings of this extensive research should aid the policy makers contemplating on proliferating high bandwidth broadband around the world.

The digitalization of the film industry impacts business and audience relationships across the value network. It is unclear how this affects the position of European firms vis-à-vis powerful Hollywood players. Could the audience reach of European films be enlarged? We look back at potentially ‘disruptive’ innovations in the past to answer this question. First, we discuss theoretical concepts related to disruptive innovation. Second, we draw lessons from the introduction of television and home video. Third, we bring both strands together to evaluate what the digital future holds in store for Hollywood and its European challengers.

This chapter delves into recent developments in the film industry (or sector) with specific attention to the evolution in a context of digital 'dematerialization'. We focus here on those companies involved in value-adding activities (from production, through distribution and marketing, to exhibition; see also below) with regard to feature films. These are typically defined as films with a runtime of more than one hour and intended for theatrical release1 (see, for example, EAO, 2010: 8). This choice relates to our starting point, which is the traditional film sector as it developed historically, built around a theatrical release that has gradually expanded to include non-theatrical delivery channels. This chapter looks at the changes that digitization has brought for this traditional organizational model. We do recognize that, increasingly, the boundaries between the different types of content and their exhibition are blurring (e.g. when feature films are only very briefly theatrically released, when user-generated content (UGC) is programmed as 'alternative content' on a cinema screen, etc.).

The concept and phenomenon of media innovation is gaining some attention in the academic community, policy circles and among practitioners. However, the phenomenon is still poorly defined and not well understood. This paper therefore first analyses how media innovation is framed in the literature on media economics and media management. Then it considers to what extent the standard analysis of innovation could be applied to the media field, considering, on the one hand, the traditional view on innovation policy and, on the other hand, some of the most common indicators of innovation. Based on this information, the paper suggests a novel conceptualisation of media innovation. Furthermore, an analysis of statistical indicators on R&D expenditure leads to three assumptions related to media innovation, namely (1) that the Media and Content Industries (MCIs) are much less innovative than the ICT industries, or/and (2) that R&D statistics do not properly capture the innovativeness of the MCIs, or/and (3) that the innovative activities in media and content are largely taking place elsewhere (for instance in the ICT sector). Whereas the statistical indicators point towards the second explanation, a small round of expert interviews in Flanders revealed that there is a case for assumptions (1) and (3) as well. First of all, it was shown that all forms of innovation defined in our typology exist in the media field, but not with the same importance. The most important ones from the media industries’ point of view seems to be the innovation related to the product, notably concerning the core (e.g. creation of new types of TV shows) and business model innovation. There is also technological innovation taking place in the media industries, for instance concerning new ways to access and interact with the content but this innovation comes from out the media sector (e.g. HD-TV, search engines) and at best the media industries try to adapt to this rapidly changing technological context.

A new impact-assessment framework evaluates the economic and environmental effects of information and communications technology (ICT), attempting to link such effects to policies, standards, and industrial strategies. The framework is tested on a project for cooperative and self-growing energy-aware networks.

This paper addresses the intergenerational effects of mobile telephone service diffusion in Sweden. Using the Norton-Bass model and the Islam-Meade model, it plots annual mobile service penetration rate data from 1956 to 2010 to explain the pattern of mobile telephone service diffusion. The results show that only the Norton-Bass model could achieve convergence status in the programme iteration. The results also suggest that the diffusion process is affected more by external factors, such as word of mouth, than by the inherent innovativeness of users. Each type of technology is also found to have different market potential, with newer technology having greater market potential than older technology. The study also recognises that the intergenerational process of mobile telephone service diffusion is comparable to the evolutionary process of technology in the sense that it shows two main evolutionary features, i.e., the emergence of technology variation across generations and the selection process from earlier generations of technology to the new one.

This paper investigates the business impact of two novel mechanisms that increase the energy efficiency of networks, i.e. sensor network decentralisation and system idle time estimation, which have been developed in the CONSERN project. The analysis consists of two distinct but interrelated phases, the objective of which is to combine a techno-economic analysis of actual gains as contained within the technical KPIs of optimisation techniques, with a strategic analysis of factors promoting or hindering the actual introduction of these mechanisms within mobile business ecosystems. In the first phase, the technical gains of the two mechanisms are translated into an estimation of Operational Expenditure (OPEX) savings for a number of typical configurations. Subsequently, a business impact assessment is performed, in which two commercial deployment modes – an operator based and operator independent mode – are outlined. After having drawn up the business ecosystem for these two deployment models, a number of business opportunities and challenges for the two mechanisms in the different deployment modes are identified using the business model framework developed by Ballon, and a scorecard is used to weigh the importance of the various business model parameters against each other. The paper concludes with some recommendations and steps to mitigate disjunctions and improve synergies between the key stakeholders, constituting a sustainable business ecosystem.

In this paper, the principles of multi-sided platform theory and value network analysis are used in order to give a detailed picture of the financing and revenue sharing models present in the audiovisual media industry in Flanders. By means of expert interviews, we verify whether the counter-logics of platform ecosystems and the double marginalisation effect of double platform markets pertain to the Flemish audiovisual media industry. We also discuss the impact of new entrants such as over-the-top players on the audiovisual ecosystem in general.

Network oversubscription has long been used by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). While high oversubscription ratios can hamper the end user experience, low oversubscription rates may result in an under-utilization of resources. This paper investigates the impacts of oversubscription, both from a technical (OpEx, Energy footprint etc.) and from a value network point of view (Control and Value creation etc.). A multi-parameter sensitivity analysis of a power model is performed to establish that the choice of oversubscription ratio by an ISP can have a serious impact on their operational energy and capital expenditures. As a next step, a set of business model parameters are operationalized in order to evaluate and establish long-term and short-term impacts of network oversubscription on business stakeholders. Key findings include that there is a need to establish a fit between the technical and business gains of network oversubscription, and that is possible only when an ISP leverages its control and influence over its customer base to better understand and anticipate the network usage, thereby being able to promptly adapting the overall network oversubscription ratios.

For long, Western European governments considered public broadcasters propellers of innovation in the media sector. Pointing at the decline of spectrum scarcity and other technological evolutions, private media companies and some scholars argue that innovation is not a public service task any longer. This article investigates whether government rhetorics and regulatory actions indeed follow these opinions. Is there a shift away from relying on public broadcasters for triggering innovation in the media sector towards innovation programs that depend more on private sector investments? Its focus is on Flanders (the Northern part of Belgium) where government has made new agreements with the public broadcaster VRT about its tasks. The article, which is based on a literature study, document analysis and expert interviews, concludes that politicians in spite of some improvements at the level of overcoming fragmentation, are making few policy choices, leaving things somewhere ‘in the middle’ as they assign innovation tasks and fragmented budgets to all players in the media market.

Switching on/off nodes in a heterogeneous networking environment allows for efficient utilization of radio resources, and lowers the overall energy footprint of operating such a network. Early simulation results of such a mechanism being developed in the CONSERN project indicate a significant reduction in the Operator's energy and operational costs (OpEx) without any noticeable impact on end-user throughput. In order to test the commercial feasibility of the mechanism, we first perform an economic impact assessment for costs and ownership of the network, following which a holistic business model analysis is performed in which two commercial deployment modes - an operator based and operator independent mode are outlined. The paper concludes with some recommendations and steps to mitigate disjunctions and improve synergies between the key stakeholders, constituting a sustainable business ecosystem.

This paper explores advanced methodologies to analyse the causes of so called energy efficiency gap, by identifying and analyzing how inter-actor relationships in business ecosystems can affect and act as barriers for commercial success of energy efficient solutions. For this, the paper takes the multi-actor framework (MACTOR) as a starting point and adapts it, connecting and transforming the strategic positions taken by stakeholders to a matrix of twelve control and value parameters (the Business Model Matrix) developed in earlier work. As a use case for this methodology, the paper examines the business ecosystem surrounding the introduction of a new energy efficient technology - CONSERN. The key motivation is to identify the strategic objectives that can essentially capture the viability of CONSERN enabled devices in the marketplace and to further elaborate on the battlefields where for a given objective various actors in the business ecosystem are in convergence, in divergence, or neutral.

This paper analyzes the viability and sustainability of business ecosystems for next generation self-growing, reconfigurable, and energy-aware networks. Focus is placed on how interactor relationships in business ecosystems can affect and act as barriers for commercial success of energy efficient solutions. For this, the paper combines a multi-actor framework (MACTOR) with a Business Model approach. The paper examines the business ecosystem of a new self-growing and energy efficient technology – CONSERN. The main actors, their balance of power, and convergence and divergence with respect to strategic positions are analyzed and visualized using the MACTOR framework. From this, implications for key actors, their relationships and the viability of the business ecosystem are derived.

This report is the 2010 edition of a report that is published annually. It presents all the data available on ICT R&D private and public expenditures in Europe, at sector, country and company levels, and from an international perspective (benchmarking). It provides data up to 2007. The second part of the report includes a thematic analysis on ICT R&D internationalisation.