This report examines the issue of late payments, which can have significant impacts on smaller businesses. Based on a survey of around 3000 companies across 11 countries, our analysis indicates that 11.0% of all invoices issued by SMEs are paid late, equivalent to a total of USD 1.01 trillion per year. Worse, 7.5% of invoices[…]
This report examines the impacts of administration – including that caused by regulation – on SMEs, particularly looking at how much effort and cost these companies have to spend to comply with requirements. Across the eleven countries studied, the the size of the administrative burden varies considerably, but, on average, requires around 120 man-days and[…]
Plum has recently completed a detailed report assessing the commercial and economic impacts that could result from important policy changes affecting use of intellectual property in technical standards. These changes were, rather contentiously, adopted by the US based IEEE organisation in 2015, following support from the US Department of Justice. Our report reviews intensive industry[…]
Plum has recently undertaken a detailed review of Multi-Operator Core Network (MOCN) technology, with assessment on commercial and economic efficiencies and regulatory policies. MOCN brings incremental benefits over Multi-Operator Radio Access Network (MORAN) technology in that, additionally, MOCN enables spectrum sharing. With ongoing traffic demands towards 4.5/5G, we believe that MOCN technology and spectrum sharing[…]
Mobile network planning is by now a pretty well established process – operators first roll out coverage to areas where there is a large demand, and then add additional equipment or spectrum in areas where the coverage layer doesn’t provide enough capacity. The initial coverage investment is restricted to where enough people are willing to[…]
High quality broadband connectivity for all is central to the European Union’s Digital Single Market objectives. Yet the concept of high quality universal broadband and its relationship to a universal service obligation which includes broadband is ill-defined. In this Insight we set out an economically rational approach for defining and funding universal broadband. This highlights[…]
Plum has provided expert technical support to ComReg in relation to the future licensing and use of the 3.6 GHz band (3400 – 3800 MHz) in Ireland, following the expiry of existing rights of use for fixed wireless access local area (FWALA) licences in 2017. This included advising on the appropriate technical and other conditions[…]
Plum was part of a consortium examining all aspects of Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR) systems under European research programme FP7. Plum was involved in the development of the reference usage scenarios with the aim of identifying the typical current and anticipated future operational scenarios faced by PPDR operatives and the related communications needs,[…]
We undertook a number of modelling studies for Ofcom in 2014-2015, to inform their policy on technical conditions relating to the release of 700 MHz broadcast spectrum for mobile use. The most likely band-plan involved the user equipment (UE) handsets transmitting at frequencies immediately above the remaining broadcast allocation, with base stations assigned spectrum higher[…]