P1301 ETRACS

Project Information

What is this Project about?

Constructed correctly, an e-marketplace for connectivity services will create a more flexible means of purchasing and selling compared to conventional bilateral agreements. The effective pooling of resources in the market place should lead to their more efficient use, benefiting all concerned from an economic point of view. Network expansion could be more effectively and efficiently managed. The ability to buy additional capacity at short notice may enable participants to accept business they normally would have turned away. New markets could be created with applications that require significant amounts of bandwidth over relatively short periods of time such as video conferencing, large database backups etc. The market, in theory, could be extended to include derivative products such as options and more exotic contractual arrangements such as swaps. These additions would improve flexibility and control over risk management in network investments. In order to achieve these benefits, a good understanding of the technical and economic issues surrounding a market in connectivity services is required. Gaining this understanding is the aim of this project.

What are the main objectives of this Project?

The project aims to advance the state-of-the-art in electronic trading of complex connectivity services by designing, specifying, implementing and testing advanced functions for an innovative e-marketplace for commoditised connectivity services.

First an overview of connectivity services, of existing markets for them and mechanisms for their trading will be given. Existing services that are already traded and additional ones that could be suitable for trading on e-marketplaces will be identified. From this, a scheme for their categorisation and commoditisation will be developed.

Existing trading mechanisms will be analysed and new ones developed. Market players will be examined and potential market scenarios conceived. The possibility of the development and use of derivative instruments, based on tradable commoditised connectivity services, will be investigated.

Based on the analysis of existing e-marketplaces, additional functionalities and interfaces will be specified that enable advanced trading of sophisticated connectivity service, involving the services and trading mechanisms mentioned above. The feasibility of implementing the new functionalities and potential technical constraints will also be considered. After the implementation of some enabling e-marketplace functionality for the trading of connectivity services the platform will be tested. The trial scenarios will be defined from the results of the analysis of market players, trading mechanisms and scenarios from earlier in the project.

Project Results

Deliverable Title	No	Issue date
Overview of e-markets: connectivity services, trading mechanisms and players	D1	May 2003
Exploration and Analysis of Innovative E-Market Scenarios	D2	February 2004
Identification and specification of new functionalities for e-market platforms to facilitate connectivity service trading	D3	January 2004
E-Tracs Showcase (Flash demo of a potential e-Marketplace platform for the trading of Connectivity Services)	D4	January 2004