From regulator viewpoint, there are a number of things to be considered. If the purpose is to generate competitive environment through more mobile operators, it should not promote 4G to the market due to less return on investment. However, as shown by statistical evidence, it is difficult to generate equally shared market even though the number of competitors are large.
On the contrary, as showed in the results, introducing 4G support competition from higher degree of substitutability from OTT services. It helps reduce the cost of communication and improve the quality of data services in terms of speed and consistency, which enables more variety of non-voice services. Mobile services are therefore disintegrated splitting the services into 2 layers. Market power of mobile operators is inevitably dwindled. Eventually, its superior efficiency helps optimize the resources utilization and decrease welfare lost owing to diluted market. Countries adopted 4G should consider a redefinition of market to truly capture the state of competition.
In economics of technological change, 4G can be creative destruction but the process must take time. The evidence shows that data services substitutes the minutes of calling faster by 2.4% after 4G is available. So, in the future, we shall see that people migrate to superior technology resulting in a boost in data usage and non-voice ARPU. This piece of evidence indicates that innovations benefit the economy over time. Therefore, the economy that early adopts innovations gain dynamic efficiency and stays ahead of others who do not. Wireless market then should be introduced with new technology standards as it increases overall efficiency and living standard