Interregional and International Telephone Communication. Aggregate Traffic Model and Empirical Evidence for Austria

Fischer, Manfred M. and Essletzbichler, Jürgen and Gassler, Helmut and Trichtl, Gerhard (1992): Interregional and International Telephone Communication. Aggregate Traffic Model and Empirical Evidence for Austria. Published in: Sistemi Urbani , Vol. 15, No. 2/3 (1993): pp. 121-135.

Abstract

The explosion of activities and requirements associated with the production, processing and transfer of information is increasingly being matched by a profileration and diversification of new telecommunication media for transmitting information, including text processing and transmission services such as facsimile transmission, videotex, teleconference services, electronic mail etc. Nevertheless, the telephone is still - by far - the most important telecommunication service. The paper results from ESF-research undertaken within the Network on European Communication and Transport Activity Research (NECTAR) and relates to telephone communication undertaken for the Netherlands by Rietveld and Jansen (1990) and Switzerland by Rossera (1990). The current study focuses on the Austrian case and relies on data measured by the Austrian PTT in 1991, in terms of erlangs, an internationally widely used and reliable measure of telecommunication contact intensity. The data refer to the total telecommunication traffic on the public network. Due to technical reasons oral communication can not be distinguished from other services such as data transmission, transfer of documents and text (facsimile) etc. But the demand for such new telecommunication services is still at a very modest level in Austria. The paper addresses two major issues. First an attempt is made to explore the factors influencing the spatial pattern of domestic telephone traffic in Austria. The econometric approach applied to this problem belongs to the class of spatial interaction models explaining a telephone communication flow from a region i to a region j by three types of factors, factors associated with the region of origin, factors associated with the region of destination and factors associated with origin-destination pairs (separation factors). In using the spatial interaction modelling approach in telephone traffic analysis various choices need to be made about how the above mentioned factors should be defined. To have confidence in the model results it is desirable that its interpretation is insensitive to the particular choices made. Whether this is so, will be investigated for several potential sources of variation in model performance.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: telephone communication, telecommunication traffic modelling
• Subjects: L - Industrial Organization > L9 - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities > L96 - Telecommunications; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R1 - General Regional Economics

References

Alonso, W. (1978): A theory of movements, in Hansen, N. (ed.): Human Settlement Systems, pp. 187-211. Cambridge, MA:· Ballinger.

Brocker, J. (1984): How do international trade barriers affect interregional trade? in Andersson, A.E., lsard, W. and Puu, T. (eds.): Regional and Industrial Development Theories, Models and Empirical Evidence, pp. 219-239. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers.

Choukroun, J.-M. (1975): A general framework for the development of gravity-type trip distribution models, Regional Science and Urban Economics, vol. 5, pp. 177-202.

Flowerdew, R. and Aitkin, M. (1982): A method of fitting the gravity model based on the Poisson distribution, Journal of Regional Science, vol. 22, pp. 191-202.

Fotheringham, A.S. and O'Kelly, M.E. (1989): Spatial Interaction Models: Formulations and Applications. Dordrecht, Boston and London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Haworth, J.M. and Vincent, P.J. (1979): The stochastic disturbance specifcation and its implications for log-linear regression, Environment and Planning A, vol. 11, pp. 781-790.

Klaassen, L.H., Wagenaar, S. and van der Weg, A. (1972): Measuring psychological distance between the Flamings and the Walloons, Papers of the Regional Science Association, vol. 29. pp. 45-62.

Nijkamp, P., Rietveld, P. and Salomon, I. (1990): Barriers in spatial interactions and communications. A conceptual exploration, The Annals of Regional Science, vol. 24, pp. 237-252.

Rietveld, P. and Janssen, L. (1990): Telephone calls and coummunication barriers, The Annals of Regional Science, vol. 24, pp. 307-328.

Rietveld, P., van Nierop, J. and Ouwersloot, H. (1991 ): Barriers to international telecommunication, what are your ten most frequently called countries? Paper presented at the ESF-Workshop on Barriers to Communication, Loughborough, September 20-21, 1991.

Rossera, F. (1990): Discontinuities and barriers in coummunication. The case of Swiss communities of different language. The Annals of Regional Science, vol. 24, pp. 319-336.

Sen, A. and Soot, S. (1981 ): Selected procedures for calibrating the generalized gravity model, Papers of the Regional Science Association, vol. 48, pp. 165-176.

Wilson, A.G. (1970): Entropy In Urban and Regional Modelling. London: Pion.