Using unprecedented access to the key actors inside the UK Office of Telecommunications (OFTEL) and supporting interviews, this book explores how telecommunications regulation works from the inside.

This book is the outgrowth of shared interests between the editors and the contributing authors to provide a multidisciplinary perspective in evaluating universal service policy and recommending policy changes to accommodate a more competitive telecommunications environment. The book is interdisciplinary in nature to reflect the extremely complex context in which universal service policy is formed. The chapter authors represent a broad cross-section of disciplinary training, professional positions, and relationships in the telecommunications industry. Academic disciplines represented include law, economics, anthropology, communication, and business.
This book's purpose is to significantly enhance the development of effective telecommunications universal service policy among policymakers, industry members, and stakeholders in the United States. Universal service policy has been, and will continue to be, both enabled and constrained by the simultaneous interaction of social, political, technological, and economic forces in the environment in which it is formed. A more effective process for policy design is to seek agreement on how entitlements embedded in universal service policy should be modified as circumstances invariably change over time. Therefore, the volume reflects recent significant developments in U.S. universal service policy--the implementation of which continues to unfold.

This book is the outgrowth of shared interests between the editors and the contributing authors to provide a multidisciplinary perspective in evaluating universal service policy and recommending policy changes to accommodate a more competitive telecommunications environment. The book is interdisciplinary in nature to reflect the extremely complex context in which universal service policy is formed. The chapter authors represent a broad cross-section of disciplinary training, professional positions, and relationships in the telecommunications industry. Academic disciplines represented include law, economics, anthropology, communication, and business.
This book's purpose is to significantly enhance the development of effective telecommunications universal service policy among policymakers, industry members, and stakeholders in the United States. Universal service policy has been, and will continue to be, both enabled and constrained by the simultaneous interaction of social, political, technological, and economic forces in the environment in which it is formed. A more effective process for policy design is to seek agreement on how entitlements embedded in universal service policy should be modified as circumstances invariably change over time. Therefore, the volume reflects recent significant developments in U.S. universal service policy--the implementation of which continues to unfold.

The telecommunications industry has experienced dynamic changes over the past several years, and those exciting events and developments are reflected in the chapters of this volume. The Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC) holds an unrivaled place at the center of national public policy discourse on issues in communications and information. TPRC is one of the few places where multidisciplinary discussions take place as the norm. The papers collected here represent the current state of research in telecommunication policy, and are organized around four topics: competition, regulation, universal service, and convergence.
The contentious competition issues include bundling as a strategy in software competition, combination bidding in spectrum auctions, and anticompetitive behavior in the Internet. Regulation takes up telephone number portability, decentralized regulatory decision making versus central regulatory authority, data protection, restrictions to the flow of information over the Internet, and failed Global Information Infrastructure initiatives. Universal service addresses the persistent gap in telecommunications from a socioeconomic perspective, the availability of competitive Internet access service and cost modeling. The convergence section concentrates on the costs of Internet telephony versus circuit switched telephony, the intertwined evolution of new services, new technologies, and new consumer equipment, and the politically charged question of asymmetric regulation of Internet telephony and conventional telephone service.

Telecommunications is one of the most dynamic industries in the modern world, with new products and technologies appearing almost every week. As in many other industries, the last twenty years have brought extensive and far reaching liberalization, with more and more countries opening their markets. In the last decade all but five Member States of the European Union have legislated for full opening of all market segments. The remaining five look set for further liberalization befor 2004. This book examines the process and consequences of telecommunications liberalization in the context of ever closer European Union. The creation of a single market for telecommunications and of a wider European single market mirror one another. Telecommunications are also something of a test case for the privatization process, as this sector has traditionally been a state monopoly. The volume approaches the European experience from three angles: the politics of regulation and the process of liberalization in the EU (including case Studies of the UK, France, and Germany); increasing global economic interdependence makes international comparisons essential, and the volume compares the EU experience wi

Contents:
Preface 1. Introduction 2. International Restructuring and National Contingencies 3. Structural Forces Challenging the European National Telecommunications Regime 4. The Liberalisation, Privatisation and Regulatory Reform of Telecommunications in the UK: In Care of the Market? 5. The Liberalisation, Privatisation and Regulatory Reform of Telecommunications in the Netherlands: In Pursuit of a New Consensus? 6. The Liberalisation, Privatisation and Regulatory Reform of French Telecommunications: Still in Care of the State? 7. A Comparative Institutional Analysis of British, Dutch and French Telecommunications Policy 8. Convergence and/or Divergence in European Telecommunications Restructuring?

This study examines how unions representing telephone workers--one in Mexico and one in British Columbia, Canada--have responded to changes in technology, work organization, and government policy stemming from the rise of a more global economy. Some business writers have suggested that globalization will compel unions to cooperate with managers as workers are more exposed to international competition. By analyzing the actual record of two unions in the highly internationalized telecommunications industry, however, a different picture emerges.

The revolution of wireless communications has only just begun to transform the telecommunications industry worldwide. This book offers insight into the possible options for corporate strategists and government policymakers as they look to harness the expansion of wireless communications to meet the goals of sustainable telecommunications development. Using a multidisciplinary approach which combines policy research, legal analysis, business economics, and models of sustainability from the environmental sciences, the book compares the development of wireless communications in four countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, and Brazil.
The comparative analysis points to common themes and opportunities, including:
* breaking down the barriers between wireless and wireline access by changing the regulatory design which constrains service providers;
* targeting the development potential of wireless access through the utilization of new technologies and service models; and
* using wireless access as the basis for full facilities-based competition in both developing and developed world markets.
No other book today offers this broad a context for a discussion of wireless communications and its potential impact on the evolution of the telecommunications industry.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the Federal Communications Commission's Local Competition Order are just two examples of the continuing monumental and far-reaching changes occurring throughout the telecommunications industry. At the 1996 Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC) -- an annual forum for dialogue among scholars and the policymaking community on a wide range of telecommunications issues -- leading industry and academic researchers presented results of their research and insights in key areas of activity, including:
*interconnection and competition;
*Internet growth and commerce;
*Internet regulation and control; and
*the political economy of telecommunications regulation.
The best of the 1996 TPRC papers are included here, representing the forefront of research in the telecommunications industry. The third in an annual LEA series of volumes based on this important conference, this collection reflects the rapid economic, technological, and social development of telecommunications. It also reflects the current state of research thinking on this issue and provides a foundation for further telecommunications policy analysis.

The telecommunications industry is the fastest growing sector of the US economy. This interdisciplinary study of technopolitical economics traces the industry's evolution from the invention of the telephone to the development of hypercommunications. Primary focus is on AT&T and its rivals.

Dealing primarily with the telecommunications industry, this text applies the strategic states model to international business strategies of industrial companies. It provides: a broad description of the telecommunications industry; details of an in-depth study of the telecommunications group Ericsson, including their developments in major markets such as Germany, the USA and Japan; and a description of how the strategic states model has worked for Ericsson and other companies. The strategic states model enables us to describe the current state and strategic development of any company or organizational unit. Using this method a company can scrutinize its alternatives and better understand its position and the possibilities for the future.

The telecommunications industry is the most dynamic sector of the U.S. economy and a driving force of economic and social change worldwide. In this study of the interplay of technological innovation, entrepreneurship, and public policy, the author of Wrong Number: The Breakup of AT&T traces the telecommunication industry's evolution from the invention of the telegraph to the introduction of the web. In the process he shows how once discrete communications sectors have converged in a new hypercommunications structure that is reshaping the world economy. In its interdisciplinary reach, the book examines engineering, judicial, legislative, and administrative developments as well as the internal policies and external relations of firms such as AT&T. Finally, and with appropriate caution, the author attempts to assess the probable future impact of telecommunications on public life.

This volume brings together scholars and policymakers to address the issue of telecommunications policy in developing countries. It elaborates on the position that economics and technology determine the framework for discussion, but politics makes the decision. Politics, in this case, refers to the dynamics of the power structure generated by the historical and contemporary context of state, social, economic, and cultural forces. The chapter authors address the system of information transportation -- the telecommunications sector in developing countries ranging from low-income countries with overburdened, rural roads in south Asia and Africa trying to catch up to digitalized fibre-optic superhighways in middle income countries such as Singapore.
The organization of the book reflects a contextually situated intellectual viewpoint. The first part presents a historical and conceptual introduction to changes in the organization of telecommunications. The second part analyzes the major external and internal forces that have influenced the process of private sector participation in telecommunications. The third part offers ten comparative country case studies that provide evidence of the diverse conditions, goals, and processes of the realignment of public and private tasks in the telecommunications industry. Finally, contributors address the issue of regulation from differing positions -- a pragmatic, "how-to-cope" discussion for developing country decision makers.
The diverse perspectives in this volume should provide help to developing countries in their struggle with proposals received from international banks, private investors, interested "big powers," and their consulting firms.

Telecommunications and the City provides the first critical and state-of-the-art review of the relations between telecommunications and all aspects of city development and management.
Drawing on a range of theoretical approaches and a wide body of recent research, the book addresses key academic and policy debates about technological change and the future of cities with a fresh perspective. Through this approach, the complex and crucial transformations underway in cities in which telecommunications have central importance are mapped out and illustrated. Key areas where telecommunications impinge on the economic, social, physical, enviromental and institutional development of cities are illustrated by using boxed extracts and wide range of case study examples from Europe, Japan and North America.

In the last decade, the technology, regulation, and industry structure of our information infrastructure (telephone services, cable and broadcast television, and myriad new data and information services) have changed dramatically. Since the break-up of AT&T's Bell System monopoly, telephone services in the United States are no longer purchased from a single firm. Advances in fiber optics, wireless communications and software-controlled switching are changing how communication services are provided. As the global economy grows more dependent on a hybrid mix of interconnected networks, public officials in the US and abroad are relinquishing control of the market. All of these changes are affecting the quality and reliability of the telecommunications infrastructure, but informed discussions of the public policy and economic issues are scarce. Deregulation and increased competition have lowered prices, but have service quality and reliability suffered? Do advanced network technologies which make it possible to offer a dizzying array of new services increase vulnerability to system-wide failures? Who should or is likely to bear the costs of increased -- or decreased -- service quality?
This volume tackles the economic and public policy issues raised by these difficult questions for an audience of industry executives, scholars, and policymakers. Leading scholars and analysts examine such issues as the effects of network ownership on incentives to invest in quality improvements and/or strategies for quality-differentiated pricing in tomorrow's broadband, integrated networks. They analyze the quality of current telecommunications networks and the impact of re-regulation on cable television quality. The contributions range from new microeconomic theory to new empirical research.
As such, the volume makes a valuable contribution to the public debate on network quality and reliability. It will be useful both as an introduction to newcomers and as a resource for more experienced researchers. As regulatory, industry and national barriers to integrated communications fall, these issues are likely to become even more important. The research presented here provides a solid foundation for further discussion.

Telecommunications and the City provides the first critical and state-of-the-art review of the relations between telecommunications and all aspects of city development and management.
Drawing on a range of theoretical approaches and a wide body of recent research, the book addresses key academic and policy debates about technological change and the future of cities with a fresh perspective. Through this approach, the complex and crucial transformations underway in cities in which telecommunications have central importance are mapped out and illustrated. Key areas where telecommunications impinge on the economic, social, physical, enviromental and institutional development of cities are illustrated by using boxed extracts and wide range of case study examples from Europe, Japan and North America.
Rejecting the extremes of optimism and pessimism in current hype about cities and telecommunications, Telecommunications and the City offers a sophisticated new perspective through which city-telecommunications relations can be understood.

As the telecommunication and information field expands and becomes more varied, so do publications about these technologies and industries. This book is a first attempt to provide a general guide to that wealth of English-language publications -- both books and periodicals -- on all aspects of telecommunication. It is a comprehensive, evaluative sourcebook for telecommunications research in the United States that brings together a topically-arranged, cross-referenced, and indexed volume in one place. The information provided is only available by consulting a succession of different directories, guides, bibliographies, yearbooks, and other resources.
On the one hand, it is a directory that describes in detail the major entities that comprise the American telecommunication research infrastructure including federal and state government offices and agencies, and private, public, and corporate research institutions. On the other hand, it is a bibliography that identifies and assesses the most important and useful reference and critical resources about U.S. telecommunication history, technology, industry and economics, social applications and impacts, plus policy, law and regulations, and role in the global telecommunication marketplace. No existing guide covers all of these aspects in the depth and detail of this volume.

This important volume presents the pros and cons of a national service that will meet the information needs and wants of all people. In the preface, Everette E. Dennis, Executive Director of The Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, asks, "What will a true information highway -- where most citizens enjoy a wide range of information services on demand -- do to local communities, government, and business entities, other units of society and democracy itself?"
It is no longer a question of whether a vastly expanded "information highway" will be built in America. Telephone and cable companies have already inaugurated their plans, and government will most likely incorporate such plans into the economic development policy of the late 1990s. The key questions remaining are: Who will pay for it? and Whom exactly will it serve? "The People's Right to Know" suggests that serving the everyday citizen should be the main objective of any national initiatives in this area. It counsels that evolving electronic services are new communications media that should be deployed with a main focus on the public's needs, interests, and desires.
If advances in the nation's public telephone network will make information services as easy to use as ordinary voice calls, or newspapers promise vast new electronic services awaiting their readers, more attention must also be devoted to the information needs and wants of everyday citizens. In our increasingly multicultural and technology-driven society, enormous inequities exist across America's socioeconomic classes regarding access to information critical to everyday life. If an information highway is to be effective, we need to ensure that all Americans have access to it; its design must start with the everyday citizen. This powerful new medium at our disposal must consider policy that includes attempts to close the information gap among our citizens. It must ensure equal access to data regarding job, education, and health information services; legal information on such topics as immigration; and transactional services that offer assistance on such routine but time-consuming tasks as renewing a driver's license or registering to vote.
Media and telecommunications professionals, communication scholars, and policymakers, including two former chairmen of the Federal Communications Commission, provide insights and pointed commentary on the nature and shape of an information highway designed as a new public medium aimed at serving a wide range of public needs. Their work should improve our basis for deciding if there are means by which an enhanced public telecommunications network can benefit the everyday working American.

Whether you're an IT professional, a telecom professional, an office administrator, or just starting out in the business world, this book provides you with an organized, easy-to-use introduction to business telecommunications systems and services. It does

As more people choose to work from home, the challenges for both the home worker and traditional management increase. Many questions arise regarding how to appraise the remote worker, the logistics of home working, and productivity. The authors focus on developing the right skills to cope with this new environment and stress the importance of knowing what the homeworker needs. Other issues addressed are finding the right balance between the office, home and client sites, dealing with the creation of workable home office environment, and technological and legal issues.

This timely work examines the interplay between intellectual property protection and antitrust rules in the communications industry, with particular focus upon the role of externalities in that interplay. There is substantial discussion of the innovation process and of how companies leverage their intellectual property rights in order to obtain market leadership. Particular emphasis is also placed upon how legal doctrines have developed to cope with these issues, and related economic analysis is also discussed.

By covering both administrative and non-administrative aspects of the postal network, this four-volume reset edition shows how this system was part of a larger network which included different modes of transport and communication (steamboats, railroads, telegraphs) as well as political parties (the Democrats, Whigs and Republicans).

Rollercoaster is a fast-paced and compelling business narrative that chronicles one of the most dramatic periods in business history. It is the story of Chris Gent and Vodafone.

Loved by the City as a brilliant dealmaker, Gent himself is often described by those who know him as affable and self-effacing. Yet he has somehow fostered a deeply engrained culture of ruthless ambition in those who run Vodafone in his name. But as the telecommunications sector has imploded, Vodafone has been swept along by bad news amongst accusations of poor acquisitions, over-investment and "fat cat" payouts for Gent himself. Trevor Merriden charts the dramatic rise of Gent and Vodafone and assesses the underlying forces driving the man and the company. He examines the turbulent recent history, of Gent's resignation, and asks searching questions about the future of the company.

After broadband access, what next? What role do metrics play in understanding "information societies"? And, more importantly, in shaping their policies? Beyond counting people with broadband access, how can economic and social metrics inform broadband policies, help evaluate their outcomes, and create useful models for achieving national goals? This timely volume examines not only the traditional questions about broadband, like availability and access, but also explores and evaluates new metrics more applicable to the evolving technologies of information access.
Beyond Broadband Access brings together a stellar array of media policy scholars from a wide range of disciplines--economics, law, policy studies, computer science, information science, and communications studies. Importantly, it provides a well-rounded, international perspective on theoretical approaches to data-based communications policymaking in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Showcasing a diversity of approaches, this invaluable collection helps to meet myriad challenges to improving the foundations for communications policy development.

Most of the literature on 5G has been in the form of standards, reports, and industry papers and articles. Because of this, researchers from non-scientific or non-engineering disciplines have struggled to understand how it is or could be operationalized and standardized across the globe. Here Peter Curwen and Jason Whalley offer the first manageable overview of 5G for a non-technical audience. This book provides a full review of the current literature, both academic and professional; an in-depth but non-technical discussion of the historical background of the development of 5G; and a broad, multidisciplinary survey of major issues including spectrum, and the licensing and launch of 5G networks throughout the world, distinguishing standalone 5G from non-standalone 5G. Throughout, there is consideration given to how operators and equipment vendors make money from mobile networks, and where money is potentially to be made in the years to come. Understanding 5G Mobile Networks: A Multidisciplinary Primer is a must-read not only for researchers and students in economics, business, strategy, and operations and logistics, but also for regulators, mobile companies, vertical operators, and anyone else interested in the development of this vital technology.