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Conference Paper
Defining Relevant Markets in the Telecom Sector
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- Authors
- Byung Sun Cho, Shin Won Kang, Seong Min Cha
- Issue Date
- 2006-06
- Citation
- Biennial Conference of the International Telecommunications Society (ITS) 2006, pp.1-11
- Language
- English
- Type
- Conference Paper
- Abstract
- Antitrust laws or competition laws are laws created to preserve free and fair competition, prohibiting abuse of market power, competition-restrictive mergers and unfair concerted practices. To determine whether a business practice is unlawful, antitrust laws consider its restrictive effects on competition. Doing this requires defining the scope of competitive effects to consider. In other words, regulators must define specific areas of transaction. These areas of transaction are referred to as relevant markets. The competition structure a market reveals upon analysis is decisively influenced by how relevant markets are defined.The definition of relevant markets constitutes a question as important in the telecom sector as it is for other sectors. The telecom market may be distinguished, according to the types of communications equipment and services, into fixed-line market, fixed-line data market, wireless data market and internet telephony market. The fixed-line market, in turn, can be divided into traditional local call market, long-distance market and international call market. Market situations that emerge upon analysis can be dramatically different, if, for instance, an antitrust inquiry defines a relevant market as the fixed-line local call market instead of the local call market, in other words, considering the fixed-line and wireless segments as one.In this paper, I propose to explore methods for defining relevant markets best adapted to the reality of Korea's telecom market by turning to the case of the German telecom sector, which is regulated under a legal system akin to the Korean one in most essential aspects.
- KSP Keywords
- Business practice, Call market, Communications equipment, Internet telephony, Legal system, Long distance, Market Power, Relevant market, Wireless data, data market