Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory
The sciences of the artificial (3rd ed.)
The sciences of the artificial (3rd ed.)
Adaptation on rugged landscapes
Management Science
Recombinant Uncertainty in Technological Search
Management Science
Imitation of Complex Strategies
Management Science
Overcoming Local Search Through Alliances and Mobility
Management Science
Modularity and Innovation in Complex Systems
Management Science
Designing a Reliable IPTV Network
IEEE Internet Computing
Regulation 3.0 for Telecom 3.0
Telecommunications Policy
The New ICT Ecosystem: Implications for Policy and Regulation
The New ICT Ecosystem: Implications for Policy and Regulation
A user-centric approach to service creation and delivery over next generation networks
Computer Communications
Enabling IPTV: What's Needed in the Access Network
IEEE Communications Magazine
Convergence and regulation of multi-screen television: The Singapore experience
Telecommunications Policy
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The emergence of pure Internet-based service providers has put many integrated telecommunications firms - industry incumbents that provide services on their own infrastructure - under massive pressure. While various pure service providers enjoy high performance, the products offered by the incumbents often cannot compete on either price or user experience. Conventional wisdom, however, might suggest the opposite: that coordinating both infrastructure and services might allow the incumbents to reap synergy effects and create superior products. To address this issue, this paper applies a complex systems perspective to the telecommunications industry. It conceptualizes telecommunications firms to be searching for good configurations of interdependent service and infrastructure activities that need to fit together to achieve high-performing product systems. Using a simulation model, the paper shows that integrated operators can indeed take advantage of the interdependencies between the infrastructure and the service domain, resulting in superior product performance. Integrating infrastructure and services, however, can backfire: because learning about both domains and their interdependence requires more time, performance in the short run will be lower than that of pure service providers that can focus on adapting their service-related activities to an infrastructure that is beyond their control. The paper characterizes the conditions under which these effects can arise and concludes with implications for management and policy.