The Institute for Communication Economics (ICE) at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München was established in autumn 2006 by the Deutsche Telekom Stiftung and is chaired by Professor Tobias Kretschmer.

In research and teaching the team of the Institute for Communication Economics is focused on economic principles in network industries, for example the markets for mobile phones and video games.

In these markets the utility of an individual customer depends on the consumption decisions of all customers which leads to fundamental differences in market structure and corporate strategies compared to conventional industries.