Spectrum Fees and Market Performance: a Quantitative Analysis

This paper aims at providing evidence on the impact of spectrum fees and spectrum availability on mobile operators’ industry revenues by using an original dataset of firms operating in 24 Countries in the period 2005-2014. The analysis quantitatively identifies the relationship between mobile market revenue and their determinants, among which spectrum availability and license fees are included. The analysis provides evidence that spectrum availability and fees are not significantly correlated with mobile industry revenues suggesting that market expectations to extract additional revenues from the mobile service following new spectrum auctions are likely not to be respected.