The Internet and Mobile Telecommunications System of Innovation

This book examines the ‘new’ areas of telecommunications technology, focusing particularly on fixed data communications (including the internet) and mobile telecommunications (including the mobile internet). A sectoral systems of innovation approach is used as a conceptual framework for the analysis of the telecommunications sector, in terms of equipment, access and content.

The authors consider the emergence and expansion of new technologies and explore how the sectoral system of innovation is evolving and how previously independent systems are now converging. In particular, they address the question of equipment production and the provision of intangible service products such as internet access and content. By addressing the production of both goods and services, they highlight the critical interdependence of service innovations and manufacturing innovations.

Some of the specific topics discussed within the book include:

• the challenges for Europe of fixed data communications
• second and third generation mobile telecommunications systems
• data communication via satellite and television subsystems
• the dynamics and trends of the internet services industry
• policy implications for the future of the telecommunications sectoral system of innovation.

The book is a comprehensive theoretical, empirical and policy oriented account of the emergence and evolution of the sectoral system of innovation of the internet and mobile telecommunications. It will be an invaluable source of reference for academic researchers and policymakers in the fields of macroeconomics, industrial economics and innovation, as well as consultants and firms operating in the communications industry.