ICT Economics - Planning and Economics of Tele and Information Services

Course is composed from three parts: Economics of networks, telecommunications and information industry, modeling of telecommunication systems with the help of the methods of operations research and managerial economics, and planning of competitive IKT services, in particular internet based services and mobile data services.

Position and function within the study program: This is an elective course in the 8. semester of the MTIØT program, and is part of the qualification for the specialization in Financial Engineering. It builds on TIØ4145 Corporate Finance. We make use of the knowledge gained in the compulsory courses in mathematics, statistics and information technology, in TIØ4116 Microeconomics and Investment Analysis and in TIØ4126 Optimization and Decision Support. The course fits well with TIØ4140 Project Evaluation and Financing. It contributes to the learning objective of the MTIØT program, point 4.1, "Interface between finance and operations" and point 4.2 "Microeconomic theory; Game theory; Production economics; Optimization models used within production, resource allocation and energy; Stochastic models".

The course will convey the following knowledge:
- The theoretical foundation regarding analysis of economic dimensions of projects in information technology, telecom and data nets, advanced ICT services. Knowledge of optimization based planning methods for data networks. Usage of financial methodology like real options, portfolio theory, risk management for analysis of ICT projects.

The course will develop the following skills:
- Training in utilization of general microeconomic, financial and operations research methods together with special properties of ICT networks for analysis of projects in development of telecommunications and data networks and related services.
Other important learning objectives: Give training in usage of relevant software for economics and planning of ICT technology and services.

Lectures and seminar presentations. The course will be held in English.