Introduces students to economic and policy concepts in the telecommunications industry which includes telephony, cable, wireless, and the Internet. Provides a base to students with a technical background to follow more advanced economic and policy courses. The course is composed of three modules that provide students with an understanding of the interaction between markets and government regulations in the telecommunication industry. The first module includes utility and cost functions, supply and demand, competitive and monopoly markets, and public goods. Building on these basic economic concepts we move to the role of corporations, time value of money, accounting and finance, and decision making. Finally we address the basic processes of policy and regulation and apply them to universal service and spectrum management.

The second module will be taught by Christie Cadwell who teaches Telecommunications Business Strategy and has over 20 years of experience in both engineering and marketing in the telecommunications industry. The policy and regulation module will be taught by Dale Hatfield who has been involved in spectrum management issues for almost his entire career, including having major responsibilities for management of the resource at both the FCC and NTIA.