Reforming Telecommunications Regulation

The rapid pace of technological change is placing the world's telephone companies in a very difficult position. Fiber optics cables, wireless telephones, digital signal compression, and sophisticated new switching equipment are lowering the cost of providing service and opening the gates to new competition. At the same time, these new technologies are providing the telephone companies with a wide array of new market opportunities. Unfortunately, their status as regulated carriers makes it difficult to exploit these new opportunities and to fend off competitive assaults on their traditional telephone business. As long as they are regulated, they can be accused of using their monopoly services to cross-subsidize new competitive ventures. But partial deregulation and open entry would be a catastrophe for them unless they were allowed to revise their rate structure. There is a widespread misconception that the U.S. telecommunications industry has been "deregulated" and that Canadian authorities are following the U.S. lead. In fact, most services remain regulated, even though some markets, such as long-distance services, equipment sales and rentals, and local services, have been opened up. This book reviews the recent changes in the structure of U.S. and Canadian telecommunications industries and the changes in regulatory policy on both sides of the border. The authors analyze the effects of these changes in regulation on telephone rates in both the local and long-distance markets with particular emphasis on the impacts of regulatory reforms and competition on long-distance rates. They use their results to suggest how regulation should be structured to allow competition to replace monopoly on the road to the information superhighway. The authors contend that for decades misguided regulation of the telephone sector in both Canada and the U.S. denied consumers the benefits of competition, distorted local and long-distance telephone rates, and blocked en

InContinentalizing Canadian TelecommunicationsVanda Rideout examines active political resistance to the radical, neo-liberal transformation of Canadian telecommunications that has been orchestrated by the federal government, big business, and their powerful lobbyists over the last two decades. Rideout focuses on the protection of the public interest, a crucial element neglected by most recent studies, and shows that although alliances have been formed between labour, consumers, and public interest activists, significant disagreements over issues such as free trade, long distance and local competition, and a targeted subsidy program for very low-income Canadians have meant that this united front has not been able to counter the forces of the new neo-liberal telecommunication policy regime.Continentalizing Canadian Telecommunicationsdetails the complex relationships between the various corporate and government interests, shows how the changes they brought about have locked Canada's telecommunications system into the orbit of the US system, and discusses the implications this has for Canadians.

Analiza: El propósito y la experiencia de la regulación; Nuevas tecnologías, redes y mercados; Gestión de recursos públicos; Eficiencia, equidad y protección del consumidor; Herramientas básicas de regulación; Aspectos especiales que afectan a los países en vías de desarrollo; Cuestiones futuras sobre redes inteligentes y comercio electrónico.

Presents a compilation of information from a worldwide pool of experts on their practical experiences in telecommunications sector reform. This study compiles a wealth of information from a worldwide pool of experts on their practical experiences in telecommunications sector reform. It provides an up-to-date account of approaches to the major policy and structural issues and describes developments in Latin America, Asia and the Pacific, and Europe. The study also examines issues related to investment, regulation, and implementation. While each of the eight parts centers on a particular aspect of telecommunications sector reform, the study highlights several recurring themes and looks at a number of country experiences from the perspective of policymakers, regulators, investors, operators, the international development community, and other industry specialists. This volume provides valuable information on how to implement telecommunications reforms, offers insights into the effectiveness of these reforms, and identifies critical areas in which further discussion of related policy and implementation issues in this increasingly important economic sector.

This book provides an in-depth introduction to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Radio Regulations (RR) and the policies that govern them. Established in 1906, these regulations define the allocation of different frequency bands to different radio services, the mandatory technical parameters to be observed by radio stations, especially transmitters, and the procedures for spectrum use coordination at the international level. The book analyzes the interactions between different national policies and the ITU RR, noting how these interactions influence spectrum policy on the national level, setting up a comparative framework within which to view these regulations and their effects. Beginning with an overview of the history of the origins ITU RR, the book takes a deep dive into the components of spectrum management including radio communication service allocation, wireless technology selection, radio usage rights, and spectrum rights assignment, placing each analysis within the context of the push and pull between national and international regulations. The book concludes with chapters discussing issues affecting the future of spectrum policy, including spectrum policy reform in developing countries, the WRC-19, and IMT-2020. Shedding light on the longest-running treaty documents in the history of modern telecommunications and arguing for reforms that allow it to address the needs of all nations, this book is useful to scholars and students of telecom policy, digital policy, ICT, governance, and development as well as telecom industry practitioners and regulators.

Focuses on the distortions in pricing resulting from regulation. Assesses the impact of competition.

This book attempts to draw lessons from the experiences of developed as well as developing countries in carrying out telecommunications reform. Contributors come from academia, as well as from stakeholders in telecommunications policy in a dozen countries, mostly in the Asia-Pacific region. Globally, the telecommunications industry is undergoing major changes: technological advances in the form of a vast number of new digitised services, ownership shifts as state-owned carriers in many countries become fully or partly privatized, and a general transition from monopolistic to more competitive market environments. The economic and regulatory experiences derived from these changes are explored and analyzed using the USA, the UK, Australia and Singapore to represent developed and newly industrialized countries, and China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam as examples of developing countries. The conclusions outlined in this timely volume hold important lessons for these as well as for other countries.