| Broadband network serves the communication and life of human society in an all-round way,and also profoundly affects the efficiency of social and economic development.At present,the fourth industrial revolution characterized by digitization,networking and intelligence is booming.Broadband network is accelerated penetrating and applied to all aspects of the real economy,promoting the deep integration of digital technology and the traditional real economy,and enabling the digital transformation of thousands of industries.Broadband network has become an important engine for promoting high-quality economic and social development.Telecommunications is a typical capital-intensive industry that still has certain natural monopoly attributes,the development of broadband network strongly depends on the network investment of telecom operators and the corresponding market-oriented investment incentive mechanism.Given the importance of broadband infrastructure,the Chinese government has also introduced a series of policies to support the development of broadband networks.However,the current academic researches on the market-oriented investment incentive mechanism and the impact of national policies on broadband network investment is still scarce,and there is a lack of systematic theoretical research.In addition,China’s broadband network development has made remarkable achievements,but there is currently a lack of quantitative analysis and research on its industrial-level investment efficiency and macro-level growth effects,an in-depth research is the key to formulating targeted industrial policies and promoting the high-quality development of China’s broadband network.Based on the above background,this paper takes broadband network investment as the research object,comprehensively uses a variety of research methods,analyzes at multiple levels,and systematically answers the following questions:First,what are the fundamental driving forces for China’s broadband network investment?In particular,what roles do market competition and infrastructure sharing play?Second,what is the efficiency of broadband network investment?What factors have a significant impact on investment efficiency?Third,what impact does high speed broadband network have on regional economic development?The main research contents,research conclusions and innovations of this paper include:(1)The co-evolution of structural reform,technology and market in the telecommunications industry has driven the leap-forward development of China’s broadband network,and sustained and strong public policy support(government requirements,fee reductions,and financial subsidies)has boosted this development process.China’s broadband network development has achieved remarkable results:network investment has remained high,network capabilities have been steadily upgraded,user structure has been continuously optimized,user experience has been continuously improved,and the digital economy has developed rapidly.However,there are also some problems:market players are facing huge pressure on investment and returns;the utilization rate of broadband network resources continues to decline;there is a remarkable disconnect between broadband network construction and application;there are regional differences and urban-rural gaps in broadband network development.(2)This paper empirically analyzes the relationship among market competition,infrastructure sharing,and network investment using the inter-provincial panel data from 2010 to 2019.The results show that both for the industry and for operators,market competition and infrastructure sharing have a significant positive impact on their broadband network investment,but the interaction between market competition and infrastructure sharing has a significant negative impact on broadband network investment.One possible reason is that when a higher level of infrastructure sharing is combined with fierce market competition,the competitive strategy of rational operators will change,which is about to shift from infrastructure-based competition to service-based competition,which can easily lead to insufficient investment incentives.In addition,compared with dominant operators,non-dominant operators’ investment behaviors respond more positively to market competition.That’s probably because the non-dominant operators,as the laggards in the market,must make more efforts than the dominant operators in order to make up for the shortcomings of network quality and ensure the competitiveness of the network.(3)This paper uses the DEA window analysis method and the SBM model to measure the investment efficiency of China’s mobile broadband network in detail from 2010 to 2019 based on two input-output index systems.The results show that China’s mobile broadband network investment efficiency is generally low,only a few provinces have been at the frontier of efficiency,and most provinces are inefficient.Under the efficiency evaluation model with the mobile subscribers and mobile service revenue as the output,the investment efficiency of most provinces shows a downward trend as a whole,and shows a certain periodicity.Under the efficiency evaluation model based on the mobile subscribers and mobile communication volume,the overall investment efficiency of most provinces shows an inverted V-shaped trend of "rising first and then falling",which reflects the operator’s network deployment strategy or rhythm.Advanced telecommunications networks are first deployed in densely populated areas with high levels of economic development,and then gradually extended to vast urban and rural areas with low returns on investment.Broadband network investment efficiency has obvious regional differences.The investment efficiency in the east is significantly higher than that in the central and western regions,and it is mainly due to higher pure technical efficiency,that is,the eastern provinces have stronger management capabilities and resource allocation capabilities.However,from the perspective of dynamic development trends,the eastern region has not improved much,the central region has improved significantly,and the western region has declined.(4)This paper uses the panel Tobit model to identify the key factors affecting the investment efficiency of mobile broadband network.The results show that market competition has reduced the investment efficiency measured by the mobile subscribers and mobile service revenue.There are two reasons for this result.First,the fierce price war has caused operators to generally face the problem of "increment service volume without increasing income",Under the mode of infrastructure-based competition,operators mainly seek to build differentiated competitive advantages by increasing network investment,setting off an investment "arms race" in the industry,further reducing the efficiency of network investment.However,market competition has improved the investment efficiency measured by the mobile subscribers and mobile service volume.This is mainly because of the fierce price war,which has led to a continuous and sharp decline in traffic prices.Under the influence of the downward-sloping demand curve,network resources are fully utilized.Moreover,infrastructure sharing has little effect on investment efficiency(service revenue)but has a significant effect on improving network resource utilization(service volume).(5)Using China’s provincial panel data from 2013 to 2019 and various estimation methods,this paper empirically examines the impact of high-speed broadband networks on China’s economic,growth and its spillover effects from the perspective of broadband speed.We found that the high-speed broadband network significantly promoted China’s economic growth,but the high-speed broadband network of the neighboring province had a negative spatial spillover effect on the economic growth of the focal province,indicating that the spatial externality of high-speed broadband network is mainly reflected in the backwash effect rather than spread effect.An increase in average bandwidth speed by one unit(1 Mbit/s)induces a rise in regional GDP of 1.07%.If considering the negative spatial spillover effect,the regional GDP growth will decrease slightly.There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between average broadband speed and economic growth.The high-speed broadband network has a significant positive impact on the economic growth of all regions in China,but it has a greater impact on the western region where the level of economic development is relatively low.(6)Based on the previous theoretical and empirical analysis results,we put forward nine policy recommendations in the following three aspects:First,maintain broadband network investment incentives.Adhere to the reform ideas of improving market structure and enhancing market contestability,prudently promote the "separation of network and service";build the right regulatory framework to ensure that network sharing does not harm market competition and investment incentives;improve the regulatory system and strengthen the enforcement of regulations.Second,improve the efficiency of broadband network investment.Promote the diversification of telecom operators’ equity,improve corporate governance,and strengthen the responsibility of investment entities;accelerate the development of 5G vertical industries application,expand industry development space;deepen the industry competition and cooperation,enhance the industry’s sustainable development capabilities;Third,amplify the effect of broadband network investment.Continue to increase the support of policy tools to bridge the broadband development gap between the east and the west;promote the transformation of broadband network construction from "coverage-based" to"capacity-based";strengthen the synergy between broadband network construction and broadband applications.Strengthen support for content,software,platforms,and solutions. |
