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This paper seeks to make an assessment of the progress towards a fully fledged internal market for e‐communications in the European Union. The assessment is placed in the context of a quarter century of telecommunications reform in Europe.

A combination of qualitative and quantitative assessments is applied with a focus on fixed and mobile communications. The qualitative assessment includes interviews and a questionnaire. The quantitative assessment is based on econometric analysis of panel data.

Removing the remaining barriers in the internal market may in the long run provide benefits of €27‐55bn or the equivalent of 0.2‐0.4 percent of GDP at the European level. Major barriers identified are related to the degree of openness of national markets and the ability of telecom firms to exploit EU‐level economies of scale.

In the econometric benefit analysis no secondary effects are included. Further research is recommended to assess the effects, costs and benefits of enforcing a higher degree of harmonisation.

The paper provides insights and recommendations that are valuable for policy makers.

The paper places the research executed in support of a study for the European Commission in the historical context of the telecommunications reform.

This paper aims to provide a description of the genesis and development of Wi‐Fi, or how the industry exploited an opportunity provided by the regulators in allowing radio communications in the unlicensed bands originally allocated for industrial, medical and scientific applications.

The longitudinal case describes the genesis and development of Wi‐Fi, with a focus on the interplay between regulation, innovation, standardization, and running a successful business.

The paper argues that the current day success of Wi‐Fi is a combined result of: a change in the US communications policy in the 1980s; the industry leadership provided by NCR, its successors and collaborators, to create a global standard and to deliver compatible products under the Wi‐Fi label; and the influence of the users that moved the application of Wireless‐LANs from the enterprise to the home, from indoor to outdoor use, from a communications product to a service, and from operators to end‐users as the provider of that service.

The exploration and analysis are based on contributions by experts from the field, having been involved “first hand” in the innovation journey of Wi‐Fi.

The case describes the first globally successful large‐scale application of radio communication devices operating under a licence‐exempt radio frequency regime. The case is a contemporary example of innovation and product development leading to an open standard. In concluding the paper reflects on the implications of this licence‐exempt case for the governance of the radio spectrum.

While many articles and books have appeared discussing the technical aspects of Wi‐Fi, the case description documents the genesis and development of Wi‐Fi from an entrepreneurial perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how technological and strategic developments enable new billing processes for mobile content services.

Interviews with practitioners are used as input for designing different archetypical role division models for billing and process models. The potential of these process models to reshape the mobile industry is evaluated on three criteria: convenience for the end‐user; potential resource barriers; and the fit with strategic interests of the actors involved.

Both technological advances and the introduction of new roles and strategies in the mobile domain enable the emergence of alternative billing methods. While network operator‐centric models remain relevant in the short term, in the longer term they will co‐exist with other models in which the customer transaction is owned by the content aggregator, the content provider, the ISP or the payment provider.

The research demonstrates the relevance of analysis at the process level in assessing the feasibility of new role division models at the value creation level.

The emergence of alternative billing providers is expected to change the power balance in the value network and assist in opening up the “walled garden”.

The analysis extends beyond existing discussions on billing in the mobile industry, which typically focus on the value network level, as the process level and the related resources are included. Moreover, the empirical data from the interviews with practitioners at various organizations provide new insights into the feasibility of these models in practice.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief introduction to the telecommunication reform process in Europe, its status, and upcoming policy issues. Furthermore, it also aims to provide an overview of the papers in this special issue.

The paper provides an introduction to the telecom reform process based on previous research and the papers in this issue of info.

The introduction argues that the European telecommunication reform process with the telecommunications green paper of 1987 as an important point of departure has been a success in many ways. It has, for example, facilitated the development of mobile, of the internet and its many applications, and considerably lowered prices. However, there are important areas where a single European market has not developed. Moreover, new challenges are rising in terms of upcoming reconfigurations of the whole information communications technology (ICT) area requiring new policy and regulatory answers.

The paper provides a brief introduction to the European telecommunication reform process, its achievements, present challenges, and the policy responses of the European Union. In addition, an overview of the papers of this issue of info is provided.