Objective

Objective of the Graduate Program

The interdepartmental Graduate Program in Management and Economics of Telecommunication Networks is an interdisciplinary program of study designed to fill the gap in education, research and development concerning the new trends in communications that
combine technological, economic, institutional, administrative and social dimension. The program is supported by the

Department of IT and Telecommunication and the

Department of Economics

of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

Context and necessity

Significant developments in telecommunications and computer systems enable telecom operators to provide consumers, through their fixed network, a vast volume of information in the form of voice, data, image and video at high speeds, increasing continuously the offered services improving quality and costs.

Mobile, wireless and satellite communications promise to deliver any form of information (voice, data and image) whenever and wherever needed. Computers are equipped with a growing computational power. The Internet is expanding in an aggressive pace, offering new services and content, changing the way we live, work and entertain ourselves. The Internet knows no national borders, working hours, age or gender. Through the convergence of technology, companies that offer television services expand their operations in digital television, while examining the possibility of providing telecommunications and information services. Conversely, telecommunication organizations are also engaged in providing television services.

The potential offered by technological progress is transforming the industrial market and its key elements. This business activity represents a wide range of transactions and includes horizontal alliances allocating the enterprise danger, matching complementary skills and vertical integration, since the factors in a market segment seek to exploit technological convergence and to expand in higher value sectors or develop scale economies.

New aspects and business opportunities appear with e- commerce. The low cost presence on the Web, allows businesses (and especially SMEs) to expand their activities in the international environment and offer consumers a greater variety of goods and services.

In the meantime, competition is intensified and transported in the international level, while the corresponding resolution of series of problems and the measures that must be taken, are carried out across national borders and international organizations, since it requires the cooperation of the international community. Such examples are the communications security, the authenticity of digital signatures, copyright, illegal content and cryptography. Today there is an urgent need to study the effects of technology on economic, social and legal level and enrich the academic educational courses.

In the past few years, a serious absence of skilled people in regulatory matters, particularly in telecommunications, is to be observed. On the one hand, engineers while preparing their plans or their research, hardly take into consideration the issues of costs, prices, regulatory framework, etc a fact that is due to the lack of the corresponding background. On the other hand, economists, decision makers and legislators are deprived of the background that will enable them to follow the technical developments. Also the composition of economic and technical knowledge is very often absent in administrative executives that undertake roles in the context of designing and developing telecommunication and information systems.

 

Management and Economics of Telecommunication Networks