Abstract
The approach to liberalisation of European telecommunications markets followed what has become known as the Ladder of Investment (LoI). The contribution of this paper is to empirically test whether the LoI also explains the development of telecommunications markets in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries.
The analysis finds that the telecommunications entrants in CEE countries largely chose to by-pass the LoI, by directly investing in their own networks. The implication of this result is that the LoI should not be considered a universally applicable theory which explains the evolution of competition in all broadband markets.
Policy makers, regulators and competition authorities therefore need to take this into account when dealing with the issues of entry, investment and competition in broadband markets across the CEE region.