L I R N E . N E T

The fiberevolution blog highlights and comments on Professor W.H. Melody’s recent keynote speech at the Broadband Cities conference (November 14-15, Amsterdam and Almere, Netherlands).

The crux of Prof. Melody’s presentation was then to show how Private Equity had driven two major European incumbents to the ground, namely Eircom in Ireland and TDC in Denmark. I won’t go through the chronology of investment reduction and asset destruction to generate short term cash, but I think the audience was, as I was myself, flabbergasted. Not that this was not known, but the accumulation of fact was very damning indeed.

Ultimately, Prof. Melody’s message was two-fold:

• NGAN investment requires patient capital
• Private Equity is not the way to go.

Click here to read the full article.

Click here to view Melody’s conference presentation.
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A new working paper by Professor Bill Melody, “Can Short-Term Cash Flow “Investor value” Incentives Satisfy Long-Term Diversified Public Policy Objectives?” considers the implications for investors in this new financial market and the impact of these funds on financial stability in the telecom sector in Europe, and examines the particualr cases of Ireland and Denmark where the former incumbent telecom operators have been taken over by private equity funds.

Click here to download the paper in .pdf format.

See also, Melody´s recent paper Private Equity Takeover of Telecom Infrastructure in Denmark, published in the Nordic and Baltic Journal of Information and Communication Technologies (NB!ict).

The final report from the World Dialogue on Regulation (WDR) 3rd research cycle has been released and can now be downloaded or ordered in hardcopy. Edited by Amy Mahan and William H. Melody, this most recent collection of the network’s research and case studies elaborates on inclusive and propoor strategies for extending network development.

Download the book - 3.8 meg - 230pp

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Four professors from the London School of Economics, a LIRNE.NET partner, collaborated in the recently released book The Oxford Handbook of Information and Communication Technologies. The handbook is about the many challenges presented by ICTs. It sets out an intellectual agenda that examines the implications of ICTs for individuals, organizations, democracy, and the economy.
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[14-15 Nov 2007] Professor Bill Melody will participate in INEC’s Broadband Cities 2007 conference, to be held on 14 November in Amsterdam and on 15 November in Almere, Netherlands. His presentation is entitled, “Long term investment vs. short term profits: The pro’s and con’s of government or market controlled telecom infrastructure.”

Click here to view Melody’s conference presentation.

Event information and program are available at the conference website.
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