In the modeling forecast field, we are usually faced with the more difficult problems of forecasting market demand for a new service or product. A new service or product is defined as that there is absence of historical data in this new market. We hardly use models to execute the forecasting work directly. In the Taiwan telecommunication industry, after liberalization in 1996, there are many new services opened continually. | Yugoslav Journal of Operations Research 15 (2005), Number 1, 97-107 FORECASTING TELECOMMUNICATION NEW SERVICE DEMAND BY ANALOGY METHOD AND COMBINED FORECAST Feng-Jenq LIN Department of Applied Economics National I-Lan Institute of Technology Taiwan, . Received: October 2002 / Accepted: November 2004 Abstract: In the modeling forecast field, we are usually faced with the more difficult problems of forecasting market demand for a new service or product. A new service or product is defined as that there is absence of historical data in this new market. We hardly use models to execute the forecasting work directly. In the Taiwan telecommunication industry, after liberalization in 1996, there are many new services opened continually. For optimal investment, it is necessary that the operators, who have been granted the concessions and licenses, forecast this new service within their planning process. Though there are some methods to solve or avoid this predicament, in this paper, we will propose one forecasting procedure that integrates the concept of analogy method and the idea of combined forecast to generate new service forecast. In view of the above, the first half of this paper describes the procedure of analogy method and the approach of combined forecast, and the second half provides the case of forecasting low-tier phone demand in Taiwan to illustrate this procedure’s feasibility. Keywords: New service, low-tier phone, analogy method, combined forecast, PHS. 1. INTRODUCTION The absence of historical data is the fundamental difference between forecasting new services and forecasting the already existing services. For existing telecommunication services, there may be a substantial body of relative historical data information on them has been built up, which can be drawn upon for forecasting purposes. In contrast, only limited information is available concerning new services [2]. 98 . Lin / Forecasting Telecommunication New Service Demand by Analogy .
