Telecommunications Deregulation

This volume explores critical issues in telecommunications regulatory policy by using a unique multidisciplinary lens to focus on the problems of market power and cost allocation in long distance telecommunications markets. The contributors approach the subject from the traditional perspectives of economics and law but also incorporate developments in newer disciplines such as operations research, decision theory, policy analysis, and corporate strategy. Each section includes a series of main papers as well as critical reviews by scholars using methodologies from other disciplines.

Based on a policy-making theoretical framework and on the recent experiences of 10 developing countries, this study explores the factors that lead to the success or failure of the telecommunications reform. It provides universal conclusions that might help predict the success or failure of the telecommunications policies, such as, privatization, and liberalization, in other nations that are now moving toward reform.

'Talk is Cheap is the call for the reform of telecommunications regulation in North America. The Author demonstrates the difficulties facing public officials who respond to today's rapid technological changes with regulatory tools designed for a different era.

Regulatory change has come to characterize global telecommunications in the 1990s. In this timely book, contributors of recognized distinction and knowledge provide a range of perspectives and discuss a variety of approaches to telecommunications issues, providing broad coverage of telecommunications regulatory policies. In its analysis of public policies for deregulating telecommunications services, the work emphasizes the business strategy implications entailed by each public policy. The volume argues that globalization and interdependence are forcing governments to adjust their policies; that technology often eclipses voluntary government policies; and that all multinational corporations, through their investment strategies and R&D efforts, are important actors in regulatory policy, as are national and international agencies.

In the information age, telecommunications is the pillar of a strong economy. To developing countries, restructuring this industry is a necessary step toward integration into the world economy. Restructuring telecommunications, therefore, has been a pervasive issue in the economic reform programs of many countries in recent years. However, the nature of these changes has varied widely among these nations. Unfinished Business examines the process of reform in Mexico and contrasts it with that of the United States, Brazil, and New Zealand, examining both the economic and technological aspects of this highly complex situation.

This comprehensive book examines the current state of telecommunications in the Pacific Basin. The focus is on the economic, regulatory, and social change caused by the technological evolution, marketplace developments and institutional reorganization. The overall analysis of the volume evolves around a multi-stage evolutionary model of public telecommunications networks. The first part consists of analytic articles on the evolution of telecommunication networks in the region, a comparison of deregulation policies in the different countries, and an analysis of public and private cooperation in international informatics. The second part reviews telecommunications systems in individual countries, including Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, and the United States.