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Bulletin Board |
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The question has been raised whether the RA is exploiting the results of the Economic Impact Study; and in particular whether the results could be used to estimate the impact of regulatory measures and spectrum pricing. The point has also been made that the Agency should have included the benefits of short-range devices. The first point to make is that the Economic Impact Study was designed to estimate the rough size of the benefits to consumers, operators and manufacturers involved in the radio area. It fulfilled this purpose. Other tools would be required to assess the impact of regulations. The Agency would need to analyse, for example, the intensity with which various sectors use spectrum and the commercial effects of receiving a little bit of additional spectrum. That said, the study does provide an indication of those areas that the Agency might look at more closely to see if the value to the economy might be increased as a result of allocating more spectrum. One of the difficulties of ascertaining the impact of regulations is sorting out the effect of other factors such as economic growth. The Agency would have to develop a model to calculate these various effects before it could quantify the impact of regulations. Having said this, the Independent Spectrum Review commissioned by HM Treasury and DTI will be looking at the effects of RA regulations. The Economic Impact Study was not intended to be exhaustive. Benefits were not recorded in all areas, including short-range devices among others. The total value of the radio sector would undoubtedly have been greater if the Agency had included these uses. The Agency will look very closely at how it might value benefits in these areas before it undertakes the next study; but there may be difficulties assembling data for reliable estimates. 17/09/01
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I read the "Economic Impact of Radio" with interest, but are the results being exploited to the full? If future studies are done it would be especially interesting to link any change in sector benefits with spectrum pricing tools, or for that matter other regulatory measures taken in the previous year. For example it should be possible to identify changes in consumer and producer benefit following the lifting/imposition of restrictions on use of licence exempt products (noting that in the published report the fast growing consumer benefit for SRDs was not estimated.) Similarly the effect on benefits (up or down) to the Fixed Links sector (etc) arising from an increase in licence fees could be estimated, and more importantly the effect of planned measures predicted. 3/9/01 |
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