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The Danish medal struck to commemorate the capture of Vänersborg in 1676 duringthe Scanian War (1675–1679) features a Latin inscription: Hic transiit invia virtus. In this article different interpretations of the inscription are subjected to renewed scrutiny, which will lead to the rehabilitation of a previously rejected interpretation as part of a double meaning of the inscription itself. Being a token of Latin war propaganda of 17th-century Scandinavia, the medal and its inscription are studied with due attention given to both the historical context and the philological aspects of Early Modern Latin.

Bakgrund: Andelen stabillinstillpassningar (RGP-tillpassningar) i förhållande till totala tillpassningar är relativt låg i världen och Sverige är inget undantag. Anledningar till detta är många även om ett flertal nya RGP- linsdesigner som Orto-K och minisklerala blivit tillgängliga de senaste två decennierna. Syfte: Syftet med enkätundersökningen var att ta reda på varför andelen tillpassade stabila linser är relativt lågt i Sverige, samt för att undersöka varför de som inte jobbar med dessa linstyper, inte gör det. Metod: En enkät med ca 20 frågor som skickades till Optikerförbundets 1550 medlemmar via e-mail, samt en intervju utfördes med en synscentralsoptiker för att få insikt i hur optiker på syncentralen ser på detta. Därefter sammanställdes och analyserades svaren. Resultat: Utav de 1550 optiker i Optikerförbundet var det 359 som besvarade enkäten. Ungefär 30% utav dessa tillpassade RGP-linser, och majoriteten jobbade inom privatägda- eller franchisebutiker. De som kände sig bekväma med att tillpassa stabila linser sa att det beror på egen erfarenhet (49%), vana (15%) och kunskap (14%). De vanligaste anledningarna som angavs av de som inte tillpassar var att RGP-linser ”finns ej i butik”, eller beror på ” för litet kundunderlag” och ”ingen efterfrågan” samt på deras ”bristande kunskap”. Det var dock flera som ställde sig positiv till RGP-linser (76%) och kunde tänka sig tillpassa dem. Slutsats: Studien visar att användningen av RGP-linser är så liten i Sverige p.g.a. bristande kunskap, saknat utbud hos butiker och för litet kundunderlag enligt optiker. Background: The proportion of stable lens (RGP) fittings relative to total fitting is relatively low in the world, and Sweden is no exception. There are many reasons for this, despite that a few new RGP lens designs, such as the Ortho-K and mini-scleral lenses, have become available over the past two decades. Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine the reasons as to why the proportion of RGP lens-fittings is low in Sweden and to map the viewpoints of optometrists with licences to fit contact lenses, regarding why they choose not to fit this group of lenses. Method: A web-based survey with 20 questions was distributed to the 1550 members of the Swedish association of Optometrists via members-email. Questions focussed on fitting demographics, the reasons why those who did fit RGP-lenses felt comfortable doing this, and why those who did not fit this lens type choose not to. In addition, an interview with an optometrist working at a hospital eye-clinic was also conducted. Result: Among the 1550 members of the Swedish association of Optometrists, 359 responded to the survey. Approximately 34% of these fitted RGP-lenses and the majority worked in private self-owned or franchise stores. Those who felt comfortable fitting stable lenses said that it was because they had experience (49%), routine (15%) and knowledge (14%) within the field. The most common reasons given by those who did not fit RGP-lenses, as to why they did not fit RGP-lenses were that this lens type “was not available in the clinic”, that there were “too few customers” or “lack of demand” and that they “lacked essential knowledge”. There were however a majority of this group (76%) who were positive to fitting RGPlenses themselves Conclusion: Because of lack of knowledge, the missing of supply at stores and the lack of patients according to opticians, the amount of RGP-lens fitting in Sweden is low.

With the latest advances in mobile broadband brought by UMTS, HSDPA, and LTE, all radio communications make use of a highly regulated resource. Specific portions of that spectrum are allocated for use by competing uses, and it is a scarce and expensive resource. To deal with this scarcity, some countries have changed legislation so that other services can use portions of the spectrum initially allocated to a different service/technology. This is called re-farming: repurposing a frequency that was initially allocated to one technology for another one. Re-farming is a cost-effective way to increase capacity for mobile use without the need for market players to apply for new spectrum. This issue is becoming crucial and important for the national regulatory body in every country including Thailand to manage their scare resource with fair and clear rule. With the exponential growth in mobile broadband (MBB) services in Thailand, it places enormous demand on the need to expand the capacity of the MBB sites with the available spectrum resources. Most often, there is a dire need to acquire additional spectrum to fulfill the demand in capacity growth. Spectrum auction prices are very expensive in principle; hence operators need to maximize the available spectrum resources for better utilization. To accelerate the 3G&4G network, spectrum re-farming is needed in Thailand. This study aims to explore the similarity and difference of the objective, spectrum target and approach of spectrum re-farming in the selected countries from each region which are USA, Germany, France and Australia. Public consultation documents and related literature were used for data collection in the selected country. Additional qualitative method which was focus group was employed for data analysis in Thailand. Experience of re-farming from selected countries is expected to provide lessons for the Thai national regulatory authority (NRA) in terms of improving quality of service and coverage and create a fair competition environment among service provider.

Increasing demand for access to the radio spectrum is setting the stage for a revision of existing radio spectrum management practices, mainly oriented towards exclusive use of frequency bands. A new wave of policy reforms is envisaged, with a potential shift of policy focus from static to dynamic efficiency. A previous wave of policy reforms promoted the implementation of market mechanisms for a more efficient distribution and use of radio frequencies, i.e. static efficiency. This second wave of spectrum policy reforms might translate into a new generation of spectrum management more centred on spectrum sharing solutions. Spectrum sharing could ensure more flexibility in spectrum use and certainty of radio spectrum access thanks to technology advances, thus promoting investment and innovation, i.e. dynamic efficiency. Among several forms of spectrum sharing solutions, collectively referred to as Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) systems, the concept of Licensed Shared Access (LSA) has recently been under scrutiny, in particular in the European Union (EU) and in the United States (US). LSA is an authorisation scheme that allows for shared use of already assigned but underused spectrum bands between incumbent(s) and new user(s) by means of exclusive individual spectrum rights of use. The adoption of the LSA regime would contribute to spectrum efficiency by making underused spectrum bands available for new users. The use of Reconfigurable Radio System (RRS) technologies, such as Software Defined Radio (SDR) and Cognitive Radio (CR) would minimise the risk of harmful interference. Against this background, this paper is intended as a progress report on the discussion upon the LSA regime, based on an extensive bibliography, which includes official documents, academic papers, position papers and reports. Several studies agree on the contribution LSA could bring in terms of spectrum efficiency. In this regard, selected elements of the LSA regime are assessed in terms of potential contribution to dynamic efficiency, taking into consideration the dichotomy between static and dynamic efficiency. These elements are: contract length; sharing arrangements; assignment procedure for LSA licences; implementation of RRS technologies; monitoring and enforcement. Although priority has historically been given to exclusive assignment of radio spectrum rights of use, the authors recognise the potential of LSA as a complementary regime that could promote spectrum efficiency. However, the authors advocate further exploration to clarify whether and to what extent LSA would be beneficial in terms of dynamic efficiency, i.e. promotion of investment and innovation and, thus, economic growth, taking into consideration the potential trade-off between static and dynamic efficiency.

This paper offers a baseline for understanding the mobile Internet market in Myanmar before widespread adoption occurs. The purpose of the paper is to explore consumers' initial demand for existing and future mobile services; the behaviour of mobile users and mobile Internet usage in such a greenfield market where mobile phone services are still emerging. The results of this study are aimed to gain insight into the current dynamics that may become more important when mobile networks and services are in place in near future. The results show that communications is the primary motive for both mobile phone users and non-users. Unexpectedly, gaining help in an urgent situation is the most vital motivation for mobile owners in Myanmar. It is surprising to see that social networking services were highly ranked compared to other mobile services available today. Respondents predict that the future services they will be most willing to use include access to community information and healthcare services. Interestingly, the mobile Internet is the most frequently used Internet services in Myanmar. In addition, demographic factors have a significant effect on mobile Internet usage. Lastly, the study contributes some thoughts for future research.

Looking back at the last decade, the mobile phone has been greatly developed from only voice call and text message to a multi-purpose device, including camera, music player, games, and even small computer. The development of internet features in mobile phones has also continuously and extensively changed from providing only limited internet browsing in the early 2000s to watching high quality video on demand nowadays. The speed of internet is also significantly increased since the introduction of smartphones. After the implementation of 3G networks in the last decade and recently the LTE networks of 4G technology in the last few years, the transmission speed of mobile internet supports the use of mobile phones to be able to provide high-speed internet services which is called mobile broadband. Furthermore, recent studies have also suggested that mobile broadband positively affect economic outputs (see Thompson Jr. and Garbacz, 2011) as well as reduce the digital divide problem, especially in the rural where fixed broadband infrastructure is limited or not available (see Srinuan, C. et al., 2012 and Prieger, 2013). With a number of possible benefits from mobile internet/broadband, it is interesting to analyse how mobile internet adoption has developed in the last decade and what factors are currently determining mobile broadband adoption in this current stage where smartphones are highly developed and transmission speed is much improved. To understand an adoption and a usage of one service, the case study of one country is more suitable than a cross-country analysis. In this paper, Sweden is selected as a case study for representing a developed country with well-developed mobile and broadband services. The method of this paper is applying bivariate probit with sample selection since the dataset consist of two sets of binary outcomes (adoption and usage). The data used in this paper is mainly based on the annual questionnaire conducted by the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS) in 2013.

The advent of digital television has triggered a revolution in the use of radio spectrum worldwide and in particular in Europe, where the digital switchover, meaning the migration process from analogue to digital broadcasting, has led to two major consequences on spectrum use. First of all, there has been an improvement in the quality and an expansion in the range of television services, but also a significant part of the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band has become free from traditional terrestrial broadcasting usage and released for other services. In response to the outcome of the 2007 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-07) to allocate the upper part of the UHF band - the 800 MHz in Europe - for mobile services, Europe committed to structuring a regional plan promoting harmonisation of spectrum use across EU member states. In 2012, the first Radio Spectrum Policy Programme (RSPP) was approved. EU member states agreed on clearing the 800 MHz band from television broadcasting services and making it available for mobile services by 1 January 2013 (European Parliament & the Council, 2012). However, some EU member states showed a high degree of sensitivity about how intrusive the RSPP could be in the policy area of radio spectrum, which is considered a core area of national sovereignty. It is suffice to think that fourteen EU member states asked the European Commission (EC) to grant policy derogations due to a variety of exceptional reasons, having missed the previously agreed deadline, and nine of them have actually been granted. Different paths towards the allocation of the digital dividend to mobile services, in terms of policy and regulatory interventions, have been traced by EU member states under the EU umbrella. Moreover, Europe is carrying out studies on future spectrum requirements, including the 694-790 MHz (700 MHz) band, which will be allocated to mobile services in Europe from 2016, according to what has been stated at the 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-12). This band is used to be referred to with the expression 'second digital dividend'.

The new smartphone era is challenging the leading position the European Union (EU) has been occupying in the mobile economy, falling behind other economies such as the United States and some countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The EU acknowledges the fragmented structure of the electronic communications market as being one of the main obstacles to LTE deployment. The EC argues that a main source of fragmentation is lack of harmonised conditions governing the use of radio spectrum across the EU. The EU member states have developed different and sometimes conflicting radio spectrum management practices through time. A consequent drawback is the impossibility of providing wireless broadband dervices across national borders and of deploying the necessary wireless networks and radio equipment. In consequence, on 11 September 2013, the European Commission put forward a new legislative package for a 'Connected Continent: Building a Telecoms Single Market' which contains several reforms directed to create a single telecommunications market. Some of the proposed reforms would partly modify the existing regulatory system of the radio spectrum, introducing harmonised conditions governing national assignment procedures. Through a document analysis and selected experts interviews the paper attempts to assess whether the EU is moving towards a strategic development of radio spectrum policy by looking at the EU initiatives on radio spectrum since the beginning in 1987. Then the focus is narrowed down to the Connected Continent legislative proposal, to value its contribution to the harmonisation of national assignment procedures. The historical overview of the EU radio spectrum policy shows that the EU has gradually acknowledged the negative implications of national fragmented and inconsistent radio spectrum governing rules. The EU has become aware of the need for a long-term strategy for the planning of the use of radio spectrum for the creation and functioning of the EU internal market. However, the paper also claims that in the arduous process of harmonisation of radio spectrum use much has still to be accomplished. Furthermore the paper draws the conclusions that the radio spectrum reforms contained the Connected Continent legislative proposal are probably not the means by which the harmonisation of radio spectrum use for the completion of the internal market can be enhanced. The EU and the EU member states have remarkably diverging and conflicting views on the content of the EC proposed reforms. The EU member states are unwilling to give up on their prerogatives on the radio spectrum by accepting too intrusive harmonised measures.

Over the past decade, several debates on spectrum management regimes in the developed countries have been held. However, the spectrum management regimes of developing countries are relatively understudied, especially east-developed countries. This paper studies current spectrum management reform in Myanmar. Myanmar has pursued reform of its telecommunication sector over the past two years. The initial round of reform resulted in the issuing of two nationwide telecom-operating licenses, followed by development of a regulatory policy framework to promote competition. Yet, the development of the country's regulatory policy is still on going. In terms of spectrum management, spectrum is regulated and allocated by the Department. At present, valuable spectrum is critically under-utilized in Myanmar. As part of the allocation of licenses to other operators, a clear allocation of spectrum is important in enabling cost and time efficient provision of services to the market. Therefore, the need for a transparent spectrum policy, that is, monitoring, identifying spectrum that is already in use, and protection of assigned frequencies still needs development. As a greenfield market, Myanmar has the opportunity to benefit from an improved use of its spectrum and to adopt efficient spectrum management policies. This paper will review three basic approaches for spectrum management regime, study the current spectrum management reform in Myanmar, offer policy recommendations and provide implications for future research on spectrum management and related areas. The findings show that Myanmar government had been using obsolete policies for ages. Until recent two years, major policy changes were happened. In addition, the spectrum management reform in Myanmar is going through a transition from the government-based approach to the market-based approach. Liberalized spectrum management policies have been issued, but not yet put into action. Hence, the study argues that the government should have a strong, committed regulatory environment in place before embarking on a transition in order to facilitate the transition process. Finally, this study provides further studies on liberalization, the digital divide, the development of telecom and broadband policy and specific reform in Myanmar.

This paper aims to measure the impact of broadband speed access and upgrades on the household income based on a survey comprising 20,000 respondents in eight OECD and three BRIC countries in 2010 (Brazil, India and China). The study is novel, as most previous studies on broadband emphasize the penetration rate as the variable of interest. Moreover, by digging deeper on broadband speed (rather than broadband penetration rate), the problem concerning broadband definition that varies between countries can also be avoided. To investigate the impacts, a treatment effect model is employed using the Propensity Score Matching (PSM). Two aspects are being investigated: the impact of broadband access and the impact of varying broadband speeds on income. For access impact analysis, the samples are one with broadband access at a particular speed level against the other without the broadband access. Moreover, for the speed upgrades, the comparisons are carried out at various speed levels, e.g. users with 2 Mbps compared with the ones with 512 kbps. The results reveal that obtaining access to 0.5 Mbps in the OECD countries would not be expected to yield an increased income. The study suggests a minimum speed requirement where the households are expected to benefit from broadband lies somewhere between 2 Mbps and 4 Mbps. For BIC countries, however, the impact is already visible at 0.5 Mbps. At this speed, broadband users have a greater likelihood to gain 800 USD compared with the unconnected ones which is equivalent to 70 USD per month per household. For speed upgrades, the speed level giving the highest benefit to income in BIC and OECD countries is the same (4 to 8 Mbps), even though higher speed levels (8 to 24 Mbps) seems to contribute more in OECD than BIC countries. Note that the survey was carried out in 2010 when the sample average speed level in OECD countries was only about 4-5 Mbps and 2 Mbps in BIC countries. The analysis is supported by a reasonably strong statistical significance in OECD but not for the BIC countries due to sample limitation.

Each day, we are confronted with a large amount of more or less important information that we have to consider, and even in our digital society we need paper for communication, documentation and education. Much of the paper we use or are confronted by in our daily life, such as newspapers, books and packages, contains printed images or texts, and the appearance of both the print and the supporting surface is important. A good contrast between a printed text and the paper makes it easier to read, a detailed print of an illustration makes it more informative, and clear and evenly distributed colours on a package or on a poster make it more appealing. All of these qualities depend on the optical properties of the paper product and the the behavior of light illuminating the different materials. The aim of the work described in this thesis is to characterize the structure of coatings and prints, and to validate models for the optical response and interaction of ink and coating based on optical measurements of physical samples. It is the interactions between the printing ink and the porous structure of the coating layers that are subject to investigation. Experiments have been employed to relate the physical conditions in a flexographic printing nip to the ink setting, affected by the physical and chemical properties of the coating, to the resulting optical response of the printed paperboard. The aim of the work described in this thesis is to characterize the structure of coatings and prints, and to validate models for the optical response and interaction of ink and coating based on optical measurements of physical samples. It is the interactions between the printing ink and the porous structure of the coating layers that are subject to investigation. Experiments have been employed to relate the physical conditions in a flexographic printing nip to the ink setting and the resulting optical response. By comparing simulated and measured results, it was shown that modifications of the surface properties account for the brightness decrease when substrates are calendered. Light scattering simulations, taking into account the surface micro-roughness and the increase in the effective refractive index, showed that surface modifications accounted for most of the observed brightness decrease, whereas the bulk light scattering and light absorption coefficients were not affected by calendering. Ink penetration affects the print density, mottling and dot gain. Results show that ink distribution is strongly affected by surface roughness, differences in pore size and pore size distribution. For samples having different latex amounts and different latex particle sizes, a higher print force did not increase the depth of penetrated ink to any great extent, but rather allowed the wetting to act more efficiently with a more evenly distributed ink film, a higher print density and fewer uncovered areas as a result. Uncovered areas could be linked both to local roughness variations and to local wettability variations on the surface. Samples with different ratios of calcium carbonate/kaolin clay pigment showed an increased porosity and an increase in print density with increasing amount of kaolin in the coating layer.

Broadband adoption is considered one of the drivers of both economic and social development. Local loop unbundling (LLU) regulation is one of the main strategies to open access to an incumbent's bottleneck network in order to soften its monopoly power and encourage competition in the digital subscriber line (DSL) broadband market. Many studies, however, suggest that LLU regulation can slow down new infrastructure investment. Fibre optic technology is also increasingly becoming an option for the next generation network (NGN). This development is turning out to be the new challenge for regulators, incumbents and new entrants. With the similarities to DSL broadband and the move towards technology neutrality, regulators may also be able to adjust their future next generation access (NGA) regulation by learning from the strengths and weaknesses of LLU regulation. This paper therefore aims to analyse the impacts of unbundling policy on various aspects of broadband adoption that can be presented as consumer welfare. The possible adaptation to NGA regulation is also discussed in this paper. The empirical results of this study show that LLU regulation is one of the strategies to increase broadband adoption, particularly in the countries that have difficulty encouraging infrastructure competition. Nevertheless, several studies suggest that unbundling regulation reduces the incumbent's incentive to invest. With the dramatic growth in technologies, the main policy to increase broadband penetration should be competition between them, while unbundling regulation can be implemented carefully and differently in each country that has inefficiency that is harmful to consumers in its market from a monopoly incumbent. The decision to apply access regulation from DSL to fibre technology is therefore crucial to whether the regulator regulates the NGN market from the early stage of investment or waits for the NGN market to become more mature. Alternatively, the regulator can opt not to intervene in the market for a certain period of time, as access regulation can delay the growth in infrastructure investment.

The Codex Palimpsestus Veronensis Bibliothecae Capitularis XL (38) contains fragments of a Latin translation (V) of Euclid’s Elements. In this paper some linguistic and lexical notes on the translation are given as regards (i) Latin renderings of Greek geometrical formulary expressions with the article and (ii) the geometrical vocabulary. Some comparisons are also made with the fragmentary Latin translation (M) of the Elements attributed to Boethius. Furthermore, the question of the translator of V is briefly addressed, and some points regarding further research on V are presented., Bohlin Erik. Some notes on the fragmentary Latin translation of Euclid’s Elements preserved in the Codex Palimpsestus Veronensis Bibliothecae Capitularis XL (38). In: Latin vulgaire – latin tardif IX. Actes du IXe colloque international sur le latin vulgaire et tardif, Lyon 2-6 septembre 2009. Lyon : Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée Jean Pouilloux, 2012. pp. 881-892. (Collection de la Maison de l'Orient méditerranéen ancien. Série philologique, 49)

This paper aims to explore the price plans offered by Thai mobile operators and analyse the role of demand characteristics in the development of new price plans. The paper also shows how demand affects a firm's degree of innovativeness in terms of the number of new price plans. The empirical qualitative analysis is based on an original data set from several secondary data sources and includes all the price plans offered in the history of the Thai mobile communications market between 2002 and 2010. The results show that mobile operators have introduced several innovative price plans to attract and retain their consumers. Although a greater number of price plans can increase competition among operators, some have complex combinations that may lead to confusion for consumers. A price comparison programme should therefore be implemented by the telecom regulator to ensure that consumers receive correct and complete information about the price plans. Most studies, by far, have not extensively discussed this mobile communications market in detail and the effect of innovation on competition between firms in the mobile communications industry, in particular the development of innovation in developing countries.

In this project I have investigated the correlation between talks of illness on Twitter and the amount of calls to the Swedish medical information services (Sjukvårdsupplysningen). The project has only considered tweets located in Sweden and written in Swedish. In order to fulfill the aim of the project I used a SVM-classifier trained on 20,000 tweets manually marked as indicating sickness or not indicative of sickness. The resulting classifier was then used on roughly half a million tweets collected during the spring of 2012. The results were correlated with data from the Swedish medical information services. I was able to show a Pearson correlation of 0.8707051, p = 0.00225 when compared with weekly values from the medical information services. I also use an ets-model fitted to the twitter data to try to predict future values. However I have not been able to evaluate the accuracy of these predictions.

This paper aims to investigate the current broadband situation in Swedish market, in particular whether the mobile broadband (MBB) is a complementary or substitute service to fixed broadband (FBB) by using multinomial logit model. The data is collected from the Post- och telestyrelsen (PTS) survey in 2009 together with a secondary data on price of broadband service for each service providers. The findings indicate that price and type of housing are the major determinant for broadband connections. In addition, the living area and service provider affect the probability of using broadband. Considering the own price elasticities, cable is more inelastic compared to DSL, LAN/Fiber and MBB while the cross price elasticities show that MBB is complementary service to FBB in Sweden at this stage. However, the cross price elasticities of FBBs and MBB report that there is high possibility that MBB could be substitution service to FBB in the near future.

The vast majority of the studies investigating telecommunication development (diffusion of mobile phone, Internet, the broadband, etc.) that have been carried out in the literatures aim at assessing the impact on economic indicators, mainly the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), whereas little attention has actually been paid to investigate the other measurement which reflects a more direct linkage to the individual welfare, for instance the quality of life (QOL) indicators. Following the current counterargument for using the GDP as the goal of economic development, this paper investigates a survey data in Indonesia, observing the relationships between the experience to technology (the length of mobile phone ownership) and technology adoption (internet access) in affecting quality of life (QOL) at individual level. The QOL index is proxied by two indicators which are equally weighted; the objective measurement represented by income level and subjective perceived QOL following the study by Costanza et al., (2007). To operationalize these aims, the model is investigated in two sequential ways; first by determining binomial probit on the Internet access demand equation and then putting the predicted probability of the first equation into second equation of the ordered probit model. The model is further analyzed through the return to education-type equation (Card, 2001) to see the impact of experience to technology and internet access on the QOL index. The results indicate that whereas the access to the Internet is not statistically significant affecting QOL, experience to technology plays an important role. Additionally, the experience of technology (measured at its mean value of 3.5 years) affects the likelihood to have a lower QOL index around 49% and to achieve a higher QOL index in Indonesia around 12%. A year additional of ownership reduces the likelihood on a lower QOL by 3.6% and increases the likelihood to obtain a higher QOL by 2%.

The term digital divide was introduced in the mid-1990s and defined as the gap separating those who have access to new forms of information technology from those who do not. The digital divide remains an important public policy debate that encompasses social, economic and political issues. This paper presents a literature review and classification scheme for digital divide research. The review covers journal articles published between 2001 and 2010 in three types of journals: (1) Information technology & information systems, (2) Economics and business & management and (3) Social science. A classification of digital divide literature and a comprehensive list of references are provided. The results show that the digital divide is a multifaceted phenomenon, due to the many dimensions of determinant factors. Recent studies have included socio-economic, institutional and physiological factors in order to gain a greater understanding of the digital divide. Among other findings, they show that technological determinism is not sufficient to explain the emergence of the digital divide. Moreover, several types of technologies were investigated, both from empirical and conceptual standpoints. The Internet is the most commonly studied technology. The divide in access and usage are discussed at the global, social and democratic levels by employing a quantitative method, either a survey or data analysis, as the main method. However, there is less discussion in developing countries and at the level of the organization (i.e. SMEs, the private sector and the public sector). The qualitative research method could be seen as a complementary method to fill the gap in the current research. The choice of policies which have been recommended to the policy maker and national regulatory agency (NRA) are also presented and discussed at the end of this paper. Several initiatives made at the country and regional levels and by international organizations have also attempted to create a combined policy. This may suggest that the combined policy is the current trend among digital divide policies. Therefore, there is a need for future research to examine these determinants through the context of global, social and democratic divides. The results would provide some insight into how diverse people in different areas adopt ICTs.

In most literature, mobile phone diffusion is explained as a single pattern of a single aggregate technology, which evolves in certain period of time. In reality, this is not the case since several mobile technologies may coexist, substitute and/or complement each other creating intergenerational effects. This paper, therefore, aims to address the pattern of intergenerational mobile phone diffusion. Taking the Swedish market as the empirical case, the study will use the model proposed by Norton and Bass (1987) to plot annual data of mobile phone subscribers from the year of 1956 to 2010. This model assumes that the penetration of successive generations of technology is influenced by the number of adopters of the former technology generations. The result of this paper indicates that the model fit with the data. The analysis also reveals that the coefficient of imitation (i.e. internal influence or word-of-mouth effect) and coefficient of innovation (i.e. external influence or advertising effect) have considerably low values before the 80's but increase significantly during the 90s when mobile telephony became a more affordable service. The patterns also suggest that path-dependency exist in the diffusion process i.e. the newer technology typically takes off more rapidly because both adopters and technology suppliers have shorter learning time and lesser learning cost due to their experience with the earlier technologies.

Mobile Internet is growing around the world without exception for developing countries like Thailand by passing the poor legacy wired infrastructure. This study attempts to provide guidance to a national regulatory agency (NRA) by addressing the following question: What are the key determining factors to explain the probability that individual consumer will use mobile Internet? The discrete choice model is employed to empirically examine whether the service and application attributes, socio-economic variables and service provider has systematic link with the decision of consumer. The data from a national survey in 2010 commissioned by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) of Thailand is used for the analysis. Based on the findings, fixed telephony, e-mail, age, area of living and mobile operator are recognized as the strongest determinants for mobile Internet adoption. The findings suggest that the mobile Internet becomes an alternative technology to bridge the digital divide since a group of people who have no fixed Internet connection at home they can connect the Internet via mobile Internet. As such, telecom regulator and policy makers need to consider the policies regarding to infrastructure investment frequency allocation, content and application development and competition in order to stimulate the growth of mobile Internet adoption and close the digital divide within country.

National regulatory authorities (NRAs) attempt to encourage participation in spectrum assignments by enhancing entrants' likelihood of success. The question this study addresses is: Can NRA policy tools really affect the probability an entrant wins a 3G spectrum licence? In particular, the econometric analysis allows consideration of whether licence concession or mode of assignment encourages entry. The study finds that auction assignment processes only slightly increase the probability of entry, whilst price and quantity concessions have no impact.

Since more than two decades, broadband has been recognized in the EU as having great benefits to economic and social development.This recognition is evident in the first EU policy document on the telecommunications market - the 1987 Green Paper - which assumed that harmonization and liberalization through competition mechanism could be used as the tools to bring all those benefits to the European citizens. Although the policy in the following years emphasized the competition mechanism, many additional instruments were developed and implemented in order to make broadband available to all European citizen. Some instruments can be seen in the form of Directives, and some instruments are shown in many policy strategies. All of them have a considerable contribution to the growth of broadband deployment in the EU. However, with globalization, the policy impetus for broadband has shifted toward a means to increase competitiveness of a nation or region.This changing emphasis due to globalization and competitiveness impacts the design of policy instruments. A question can be raised which instruments can serve a new concept of future broadband policy. Against this background, the paper will present an evolutionary concept of broadband policy in the EU by providing a model to integrate the related broadband policy instruments. A timeline of all instruments and initiatives being implemented will be explored. This evolution will be analyzed in order to see what kind of future model is applicable when broadband policy is based on a perspective of globalization and regional competitiveness. The analysis will address how well the existing instruments can serve a new concept of broadband policy and what the needs are for new policy instruments and working structures.

Received analyses state that firms can use a bundling strategy to retain customers and capture new customers. Factors that determine the bundling strategy include product discount, service provider and customer characteristics. Consequently, this study addresses the fundamental question: What are the key determining factors that explain the probability that a consumer will buy multiple services? A Poisson regression model is employed to examine whether the product discount, service provider, socio-economic variables and geographical location impact on consumer decisions. Data from a national survey in 2009 commissioned by Post-och Telestyrelsen, the Swedish telecommunications regulator, are analysed. The results clearly show that the discount, service provider and income of the consumer affect the consumer's buying decision. For example, a consumer who receives a discount or has a high income is more likely to buy a bundle service (set menu) or select more services from the current service provider into his basket than a consumer who buys an individual service (à la carte). Service providers, cable TV operators and telecommunications carriers can also lock-in their consumer and expand their market position from one particular service to another using bundle services. Thus, this may be the time for the telecommunications regulator to consider the market definition.

Calendering of coated and uncoated paper is widely used to enhance optical properties such as gloss and print quality. The aim of this thesis is to characterize coatings and prints, and to validate models using experimental results from optical measurements of physical samples. Calendering of coated paper often leads to a brightness decrease. The mechanism for this is not altogether clear. One common explanation is that the porosity of the coating layer decreases and hence the scattering decreases. By comparing simulated and measured results it was shown that modifications of the surface properties account for the brightness decrease of ground calcium carbonate coated substrates with calendering. Monte Carlo light scattering simulations, taking into account the measured decrease of surface microroughness and increased effective refractive index, showed that surface modifications accounted for most of the observed brightness decrease of the ground calcium carbonate coated substrate, whereas the bulk scattering and absorption coefficients were not affected by calendering. It was also shown that the scattering coefficient is significantly dependent on the coat weight whereas the physical absorption coefficient is not. The penetration of ink in the z-direction of a substrate influences the quality of the print. The ink penetration affects print density, mottling and dot gain, common print effects that influence the preference of consumers. The pressure in the printing nip and the porosity of the substrate both affect the amount of ink that is pressed into the porous structure of a coating layer during printing. By printing pilot coated paperboard with different coating porosity and measuring the resulting optical properties of the prints, a basis for simulations of the different layers, that is to say the coating, the print and the mixed layer in between, was created. Results show that ink distribution is strongly affected by the roughness of the substrate. Fibres and fibre flocks underneath the two coating layers created an unevenly distributed coating thickness that affected the print quality. Differences in pore size and pore size distribution also affected the behaviour of the ink. A coating layer of broad pigment particle size distribution resulted in a relatively low print density, in comparison to coatings of narrowly distributed particle sizes. Comparison of dot gain showed that the coating layer of a narrow particle size distribution had a relatively low dot gain compared to others. In this work, these results are explained by the differences in ink distributions on and in the coating layers.

Scarce radio spectrum is assigned to mobile network operators (MNOs) by national regulatory authorities (NRAs). Spectrum is usually assigned by beauty contest or an auction. The process requires that winners make a payment to the government. MNOs seek scarce spectrum to enable the provision of wireless services for profit. While MNOs are imperfectly aware of their costs, NRAs rely solely on MNOs for this information. As such, NRAs set spectrum assignment conditions (including minimum bid price) largely ignorant of MNO operating conditions. This study examines the performance of 3G auction outcomes in terms of the prices paid by winners via an econometric analysis of a unique sample of national 3G spectrum auctions. These winning bids depend on national and mobile market conditions, spectrum package attributes, license process, and post-award operator requirements. Finally, model estimation accounts for the censored nature of these data.

The mobile broadband (MBB) in Swedish market has become a more attractive opportunity for service providers, with growing demand for ubiquitous broadband connectivity after the mobile operators got 3G license in 2000. MBB seems to have more advantage compare to Fixed broadband (FBB) in term of mobility, compatibility and quality of service. This paper aims to explore the current broadband situation in Swedish market, in particular whether the mobile broadband is a complementary or substitute by using descriptive analysis. The data is collected from the Post- och telestyrelsen (PTS) Survey and the secondary data from PTS during 2002-2009. The findings indicate that the MBB and FBB subscribers remain growing, but the issue of complementary and substitution between MBB and FBB cannot be given an answer at this stage. The crucial problem of comparing MBB and FBB is the different units of measurement. Also, the potential of avoiding regulation by service providers is discussed since the market participants in FBB and MBB services are the same players. The rapid growth of MBB together with a lower degree of regulation in mobile services may attract the market player to put their effort more in MBB market. Moreover, the gap between broadband infrastructure coverage and the usage of this service is huge. Thus, the inefficiency of BB infrastructure utilization becomes another issue that NRAs could consider.

The object of the present briefing is to analyse some of the fundamental aspects of the legal proposal by the European Commission on the subject of roaming, COM (2006)382 on 12 July 2006, which proposed to modify the regulation of mobile communications, resulting in important eductions of roaming tariffs within the Community. The briefing examines the efficiency and concrete applicability of the measures introduced by the Regulation Proposal, which created the “Mechanism of the Domestic European Market” and the envisaged requirements of transparency and information on roaming costs charged by mobile network operators (MNOs). The briefing consists of four sections, analysing the following issues: Transparency, Technical Infrastructure, Overview of Existing Data, and Feasibility of Technical Implementation., peer-reviewed

In October 2015, the Greek Parliament voted on new legislation concerning, among other things, the digital terrestrial television broadcasting licensing procedure for private TV stations. The new framework aims to regulate the field, after years of private TV broadcasting on “temporary” licenses, which were issued 25 years ago. Under the new framework, the Greek regulatory Authority (the National Board of Radio and Television – hereinafter, ESR) will issue a number of licenses to television content providers, after a highest-bid auction process. The number of licenses will be determined by a majority vote of the Greek Parliament, following the Minister of State’s proposal, and after public deliberation and consultation with the ESR, and both Greek and international experts. The initial price of the license is to be determined by a joint decision of the Ministers of State responsible for Communications and Media and Finance.

The aim of the paper is to examine the increasing dominance of IT companies in the converging ICT industry and, on the basis of this development, to contribute to extending the theoretical understanding of market and industry convergence in the ICT area. The term convergence is often used, but relatively little theory concerning convergence has been developed except for the basic differentiation between convergence based on substitution and convergence based on complementation. The framework proposed in the paper is a combination of the complementation/substitution framework with the structuralist concept of articulation used on modes of operation of companies from different parts of the ICT industries and the resource based view on companies extended to a sector perspective and the path dependent developments of the IT, telecoms, and media sectors. Two kinds of empirical evidence are examined in order to discuss the emerging relations of dominance in the ICT area. First, there is a comparison of the basic technological properties of Internet communications and telecoms. Furthermore, there are two cases: One on the smartphone market and one on OTT TV. The two cases have an exemplary character illustrating the increasing dominance of the IT area in relation to telecoms and broadcasting, respectively.