Telecommunication rates and territorial aggregations

The diffusion of telecommunication technologies currently represents the main component of socio-economic changes. The effects induced by innovations in telecommunication, both on the socio-economic environment and on the organisation assets in the last few years, have frequently been investigated by many researchers. This paper defines a scheme of analysis which shows the effects of telecommunication rates on spatial organisation. The scheme is based on a hierarchical spatial interaction model which is used to simulate the telecommunication flows while the existing linkages between flows are being maintained. The objective is obtained by means of a simulation procedure that enables the analysis of three rates policies to be made and the corresponding revenues to be obtained. The first rate is based on the present rate, while a second is based on a linear function of distance and the third is based on a logarithmic function of distance (such a relationship simulates a certain independence with respect to total distance). Each of these supply rates policies can define different demand assets. © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.