TTM6 Tele-economics, advanced

This is a 3.75 ECTS theme designed as a part of the specialisation course in the 5th year study at the CommTech study program. The course is taught every fall semester, starting fall 2011. The main objective of the course is to give students a basis for dealing with theoretical aspects of telecommunications economics. The students will obtain knowledge through a combination of lectures, problem-solving, discussions and writing blogs.

After completing this course, the students shall be able to

1. describe basic properties of e-goods, including switching costs, pricing and supply-side aspects of e-goods providers.
2. describe and demonstrate how to use game theory to decide pricing in telecommunication markets.
3. describe and demonstrate how to utilize business models taking advantage of ICT abundance.
4. describe and demonstrate how forecasting can be used to estimate future price/cost/diffusion evolution of telecommunication systems, and to calculate the evolution of component cost.
5. describe and analyse the impact of network effects, positive feedback and churning with respect to competition in ICT services markets, and evaluate the outcome of such competition using discrete event simulations.
6. describe and evaluate the economics in the social network services market.
7. describe how to perform cost analysis of telecommunication systems, and to calculate the cost of Operational Expenditures (OPEX) of ICT services.

The theme TTM6 builds directly on the following courses, considered as necessary background:

• TTM4165 ICT, organisations and Markets
• TMA4240 Statistics

It is recommended (but not necessary) for the students to have knowledge from these courses:

• TIØ4116 Microeconomics and Investment Analysis
• TTM4110 Dependability and Performance with Discrete Event Simulation

One of the goals in teaching is to engage all students in order to create a positive learning environment and to enable you to perform as best as possible. This can be best achieved for you by participating in the teaching activities arranged as a part of this course, including:

• Prepare for lectures by reading appropriate book chapter/papers from the curriculum.
• Attend lectures and actively participate in discussions during the lectures.
• Perform defined assignments and tests and participate in assignment assistance hours.
• Write blogs (each student is expected to write one blog each) and present their blog the next lecture.
• Comment on blogs written by fellow students.

Students are also welcome to discuss with the staff, just contact us after lecture, at our offices or by e-mail.

A compendium that includes all book chapters and papers used in the course is sold at Tapir bokhandel, Gløshaugen. Ask for a compendium called “TTM6 Tele-economics, advanced”. The price is NOK 230,-.

The course features two types of student exercises:

• Skill training assignments and tests.
• Blog from each lecture written by the students.

Total mark is given by oral exam. See lecture schedule for exam date.