回顧過去，電信技術與服務皆不斷創新與發展，電信自由化也已蔚為國際趨勢，台灣電信產業躬逢其盛，已逐步開放市場，並試圖營造公平的競爭環境，同時，不論在規章制度、產業結構、技術或者市場需求等方面有著重大的變化，電信業的環境變得比過去獨占時期更加反覆無常。為延伸Noam在2006年提出不穩定性與循環變動將會是未來電信產業固有的部份，我們首先探索台灣電信業的循環的行為，由於無法直接明確定義電信產業循環波動的轉折點，我們採用二階段Markov Regime-Switching model。隨後我們進一步探討行動通訊產業循環波動背後的影響因子，在1996年電信三法通過後，行動通訊產業是第一個開放之產業，而且其普及率有迅速發展，其中的業者也飽受激烈競爭的洗禮，因此透過vector autoregressive (VAR) model，我們確認行動通訊產業其產出波動循環背後的因素可被歸納為五個方向，包括總體經濟狀態、需求、網路效果、設備進口價格以及產品價格，就單獨業者而言，自由化政策的推動和技術的發展亦有著重要作用。本文不僅止於產業變動的觀察，更將可能之波動影響因子內生化，架構一個內含11個變數VAR模型，並衡量出主要影響因子以期了解產業波動全貌。

In retrospect, telecommunication technology and services have seen incessant renovation and development. The wave of liberalization is also the inexorable trend in the global telecommunications industry, the telecommunications industry in Taiwan can not be excluded itself from the trend. The telecommunications industry in Taiwan has been opened by degrees and sought to establish a fair competitive environment. In the meantime, there are several important changes no matter in facets of regulatory regimes, industrial structure, technology, or market demand, etc. The environment of telecommunications industry became more volatile than the monopoly one''s. We extend the opinion of Noam (2006) who observed the long-term upturn and downturn in the American telecommunications industry and concluded that that volatility and cyclicality will be an inherent part of the telecommunication sector in the future. First, in our thesis we explore the cyclical behavior of Taiwan telecommunications industry. As the turning point of the telecommunications industry may be obscure, we adopt a Markov Regime-Switching model with two regimes representing contraction and expansion. This nonlinear, two states, regime-switching model shows that Taiwan telecommunications industry has suffered from the cyclic fluctuation since the liberalization had been followed out.
We focus on the mobile phone industry thereafter in this study. Since three telecommunication-related laws passed in 1996, the mobile phone industry is the first industry implemented the liberalization policy. In the process of the mobile phone industry''s evolution, the carriers in this industry all experience the rapid growth in the mobile phone penetration rate and the fierce competition. Hence, to identify the main explanatory factors of the mobile phone industry fluctuation and cycles we introduce an 11-variable vector autoregressive (VAR) model. The empirical results confirm that the mobile phone industry'' output can be influenced by five factors mainly including the macroeconomic status, demand, network effect, relative equipment import price, and output price, and furthermore, the impetus of the liberalization policy and the progress of the technology also play an important role beyond the five main factors in terms of the separate carriers'' analysis.

I. Introduction ..................................................................................................................1
II. Overview of the Telecommunications Industry .....................................................3
2.1 Monopoly Stage .........................................................................................................3
2.2 The Process of Telecommunication Liberalization in Taiwan ..........................4
III. Literature Reviews of Telecommunication Evolution ............................................6
3.1 The Transition of Regulations and Policy .............................................................6
3.2 Technological Stimulation ...............................................................................8
3.3 The Indistinct Boundary ........................................................................................9
3.4 Competition .......................................................................................................10
3.5 The Changing Demand ......................................................................................10
3.6 Merger and Acquisition ......................................................................................11
3.7 Convergence and the Internet .............................................................................12
IV. Theoretical Model .......................................................................................................13
4.1 Markov Regime-Switching Model ....................................................................13
4.1.1 Model Setup .......................................................................................................13
4.1.2 Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Parameters ..........................................14
4.2 The Unrestricted VAR Model .............................................................................15
V. Empirical Findings .......................................................................................................17
5.1 Data Sources and Variable Definitions ...........................................................17
5.2 Estimated Parameters of the Markov Switching Model .................................19
5.2.1 Policy Implications ......................................................................................21
5.3 Analytical Framework and the Estimation of the Unrestricted VAR Model .......24
5.3.1 Policy Implications ......................................................................................24
VI. Conclusions ................................................................................................................30
Reference ........................................................................................................................30
Appendix ........................................................................................................................34

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