英文摘要 |
This paper analyzes a novel investment and bypassing game where an incumbent and an entrant either upgrade to a next-generation network (NGN) or stay in the old generation network under different access pricing policies. There is a fully integrated incumbent who has an advantage over the entrant in attracting customers, and both firms engage in price competition in the differentiated service market. Under revenue-neutral regulation of access prices, the strategy combination in which the incumbent invests in an NGN with the provision of access to the entrant is always a Nash equilibrium, which may lead to excess momentum. There also exists a bypassing equilibrium without the investment from the incumbent, which may present excess inertia for the incumbent. The Ramsey policy suggests diverse designs on access prices to remedy the possible inefficiency. We also provide two extensions on network externality and switching costs for robustness. |