LRIC

Last updated

LRIC or LRAIC (the distinction between the two is presented below) is an abbreviation for "long-run average incremental cost". [1] A LRIC model is often used in telecommunications regulation to determine the price paid by competitors for services provided by an operator with significant market power, usually the incumbent (former monopoly).

Each of LRIC's components is analysed below.

Long run

Long run implies that all inputs are considered variable. In other words, even capital equipment can vary in response to a change in demand.

Average

LRAIC can be defined as including all the costs of services provided within an increment. In the context of telecommunications, LRAIC has often been used to set interconnection charges with the increments usually defined as the whole group of services using the core network. These services (PSTN, leased lines, etc.) include those provided by the operator with significant market power, as well as those of interconnecting operators. The costs of the network providing this wider group of services are then divided by all the traffic to produce the average incremental cost. LRIC (long-run incremental cost), in contrast, can be defined more narrowly to include the costs of adding or removing a defined quantity of traffic, or the addition or removal of a smaller set of services, such as local calls, within the broader LRAIC increment.

Incremental

In principle, there are an infinite number of different sized increments that could be measured. However, these increments can effectively be grouped into three different categories: 1. a small change in the volume of a particular service; 2. the addition of a whole service; or 3. the addition of a whole group of services. The first definition of the increment is equivalent to a measurable version of marginal cost, that is the cost associated with providing a very small, literally infinitesimal change in output. The second definition may apply to services of very different sizes, such as interconnection, local calls and premium-rate calls.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natural monopoly</span> Concept in economics

A natural monopoly is a monopoly in an industry in which high infrastructural costs and other barriers to entry relative to the size of the market give the largest supplier in an industry, often the first supplier in a market, an overwhelming advantage over potential competitors. Specifically, an industry is a natural monopoly if the total cost of one firm, producing the total output, is lower than the total cost of two or more firms producing the entire production. In that case, it is very probable that a company (monopoly) or minimal number of companies (oligopoly) will form, providing all or most relevant products and/or services. This frequently occurs in industries where capital costs predominate, creating large economies of scale about the size of the market; examples include public utilities such as water services, electricity, telecommunications, mail, etc. Natural monopolies were recognized as potential sources of market failure as early as the 19th century; John Stuart Mill advocated government regulation to make them serve the public good.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electric power transmission</span> Bulk movement of electrical energy

Electric power transmission is the bulk movement of electrical energy from a generating site, such as a power plant, to an electrical substation. The interconnected lines that facilitate this movement form a transmission network. This is distinct from the local wiring between high-voltage substations and customers, which is typically referred to as electric power distribution. The combined transmission and distribution network is part of electricity delivery, known as the electrical grid.

In telecommunication engineering, and in particular teletraffic engineering, the quality of voice service is specified by two measures: the grade of service (GoS) and the quality of service (QoS).

In computer networking, peering is a voluntary interconnection of administratively separate Internet networks for the purpose of exchanging traffic between the "down-stream" users of each network. Peering is settlement-free, also known as "bill-and-keep" or "sender keeps all", meaning that neither party pays the other in association with the exchange of traffic; instead, each derives and retains revenue from its own customers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public utility</span> Entity which operates public service infrastructure

A public utility company is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service. Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and regulation ranging from local community-based groups to statewide government monopolies.

In a broad sense, an electricity market is a system that facilitates the exchange of electricity-related goods and services.

Internet exchange points are common grounds of IP networking, allowing participant Internet service providers (ISPs) to exchange data destined for their respective networks. IXPs are generally located at places with preexisting connections to multiple distinct networks, i.e., datacenters, and operate physical infrastructure (switches) to connect their participants. Organizationally, most IXPs are each independent not-for-profit associations of their constituent participating networks. The primary alternative to IXPs is private peering, where ISPs directly connect their networks to each other.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paratransit</span> Transportation service for people with disabilities

Paratransit is the term used in North America, also known by other names such as community transport (UK), for transportation services that supplement fixed-route mass transit by providing individualized rides without fixed routes or timetables. Paratransit services may vary considerably on the degree of flexibility they provide their customers. At their simplest they may consist of a taxi or small bus that will run along a more or less defined route and then stop to pick up or discharge passengers on request. At the other end of the spectrum—fully demand responsive transport—the most flexible paratransit systems offer on-demand call-up door-to-door service from any origin to any destination in a service area. In addition to public transit agencies, paratransit services may be operated by community groups or not-for-profit organizations, and for-profit private companies or operators.

A telecommunications tariff is an open contract between a telecommunications service provider and the public, filed with a regulating body such as state and municipal Public Utilities Commissions and federal entities such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Such tariffs outline the terms and conditions of providing telecommunications service to the public including rates, fees, and charges.

Teletraffic engineering, telecommunications traffic engineering, or just traffic engineering when in context, is the application of transportation traffic engineering theory to telecommunications. Teletraffic engineers use their knowledge of statistics including queuing theory, the nature of traffic, their practical models, their measurements and simulations to make predictions and to plan telecommunication networks such as a telephone network or the Internet. These tools and knowledge help provide reliable service at lower cost.

Network planning and design is an iterative process, encompassing topological design, network-synthesis, and network-realization, and is aimed at ensuring that a new telecommunications network or service meets the needs of the subscriber and operator. The process can be tailored according to each new network or service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Regional transmission organization (North America)</span> Electric power coordinator

A regional transmission organization (RTO) in the United States is an electric power transmission system operator (TSO) that coordinates, controls, and monitors a multi-state electric grid. The transfer of electricity between states is considered interstate commerce, and electric grids spanning multiple states are therefore regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The voluntary creation of RTOs was initiated by FERC Order No. 2000, issued on December 20, 1999. The purpose of the RTO is to promote economic efficiency, reliability, and non-discriminatory practices while reducing government oversight.

In voice telecommunications, least-cost routing (LCR) is the process of selecting the path of outbound communications traffic based on cost. Within a telecoms carrier, an LCR team might periodically choose between routes from several or even hundreds of carriers. This function might also be automated by a device or software program known as a least-cost router.

In economics, the long-run is a theoretical concept in which all markets are in equilibrium, and all prices and quantities have fully adjusted and are in equilibrium. The long-run contrasts with the short-run, in which there are some constraints and markets are not fully in equilibrium. More specifically, in microeconomics there are no fixed factors of production in the long-run, and there is enough time for adjustment so that there are no constraints preventing changing the output level by changing the capital stock or by entering or leaving an industry. This contrasts with the short-run, where some factors are variable and others are fixed, constraining entry or exit from an industry. In macroeconomics, the long-run is the period when the general price level, contractual wage rates, and expectations adjust fully to the state of the economy, in contrast to the short-run when these variables may not fully adjust.

The termination rate is one of the three components in the cost of providing telephone service, and the one subject to the most variation.

Equipment rental, also called plant hire in some countries, is a service industry providing machinery, equipment and tools of all kinds and sizes for a limited period of time to final users, mainly to construction contractors but also to industry and individual consumers. Renting can be defined as paying someone for the use of something for temporary or short-term purposes.

Total element long-run incremental cost (TELRIC) is a calculation method that the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requires incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) to use to charge competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) for interconnection and colocation, effectively imposing a price ceiling. A variant of long-run incremental cost (LRIC), it "measures the forward-looking incremental cost of adding or subtracting a network element" from a hypothetical system. This allows the incumbent to recover a share of the fair value of their inputs in the long run.

Net bias is the counter-principle to net neutrality, which indicates differentiation or discrimination of price and the quality of content or applications on the Internet by ISPs. Similar terms include data discrimination, digital redlining, and network management.

Socially necessary labour time in Marx's critique of political economy is what regulates the exchange value of commodities in trade. In short, socially necessary labour time refers to the average quantity of labour time that must be performed under currently prevailing conditions to produce a commodity.

Power system operations is a term used in electricity generation to describe the process of decision-making on the timescale from one day to minutes prior to the power delivery. The term power system control describes actions taken in response to unplanned disturbances in order to provide reliable electric supply of acceptable quality. The corresponding engineering branch is called Power System Operations and Control. Electricity is hard to store, so at any moment the supply (generation) shall be balanced with demand. In an electrical grid the task of real-time balancing is performed by a regional-based control center, run by an electric utility in the traditional electricity market. In the restructured North American power transmission grid, these centers belong to balancing authorities numbered 74 in 2016, the entities responsible for operations are also called independent system operators, transmission system operators. The other form of balancing resources of multiple power plants is a power pool. The balancing authorities are overseen by reliability coordinators.

References

  1. Saxena, Kritika; Bhakar, Rohit (2019). "Impact of LRIC pricing and demand response on generation and transmission expansion planning". IET Generation, Transmission & Distribution. 13 (5): 679–685. doi:10.1049/iet-gtd.2018.5328. ISSN   1751-8695.