Originally published in 1938 as part of the English Institutions series, this book contains a history of the General Post Office in the UK. Crutchley begins by examining the historic roots of the modern postal system, then goes on to describe how the post office fulfils its various roles in society in Britain and internationally, especially in the wake of the telephone and telegraph. The text is illustrated with a number of photographs showing postal infrastructure both past and present, and includes an analysis of philately. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of the Royal Mail.

Wireless entrepreneurs are transforming the way people live and work around the globe. In the process they have created some of the fastest growing companies on the planet. Anytime, Anywhere tells the story of the birth and explosion of cellular and wireless communications as seen through the eyes of one of the industry's pioneers, Sam Ginn. As deregulation and privatization swept the globe, Ginn and his team at AirTouch Communications fought for and won licenses on several continents. They built a successful business using strategic partnerships and joint ventures and demonstrated a new model for global entrepreneurship in an information-based economy. Louis Galombos is Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University. He has written numerous books and articles on entrepreneurship, innovation and regulation, including Networks of Innovation (Cambridge, 1996) and The Rise of the Corporate Commonwealth (Basic, 1989), He is President of the Business History Group. Eric Abrahamson is Principal Historian with The Prologue Group. His research has dealt with telecommunications, banking and regulation in California.

In 1889 uniformed post boys were found moonlighting in a West End brothel frequented by men of the upper classes. "The Cleveland Street Scandal" erupted and Victorian Britain was gripped by the possibility that the Post Office - a bureaucratic backbone of nation and empire - was inspiring and servicing perverse passions. The alliance between transgressive sex and the Post Office that the scandal illuminated was neither incidental nor singular; there was something queer about the post in the nineteenth century. Postal Pleasures tells the story of queer postal relations, from Post Office reforms initiated in 1840 up to the imperial end of the nineteenth century. It tells this story by analysing literature that expresses the cultural consequences of this peculiar kind of "going postal." Victorian writers abandoned the epistolary novel in favour of postal fiction. The postal network, its uniformed employees and its material trappings - envelopes, postmarks, stamps - were used to signal and circulate sexual intrigue. For Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy, Eliza Lynn Lynton, Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Edward Carpenter, Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker and others, the idea of an envelope promiscuously jostling its neighbours in a post boy's bag, or the notion that secrets passed through the eyes and fingers of telegraph girls, was more stimulating that the actual contents of correspondence. By the period's end, the postal system had become both an instrument and a metaphor for sexual relations that crossed and double-crossed lines of class, marriage and heterosexuality.

How does a telecommunications company function when its right hand often doesn't know what its left hand is doing? How do rapidly expanding, interdisciplinary organizations hold together and perform their knowledge work? In this book, Clay Spinuzzi draws on two warring theories of work activity - activity theory and actor-network theory - to examine the networks of activity that make a telecommunications company work and thrive. In doing so, Spinuzzi calls a truce between the two theories, bringing them to the negotiating table to parley about work. Specifically, about net work: the coordinative work that connects, coordinates, and stabilizes polycontextual work activities. To develop this uneasy dialogue, Spinuzzi examines the texts, trades, and technologies at play at Telecorp, both historically and empirically. Drawing on both theories, Spinuzzi provides new insights into how net work actually works and how our theories and research methods can be extended to better understand it.

This book analyses telecommunications markets from early to mature competition, filling the gap between the existing economic literature on competition and the real-life application of theory to policy. Paul De Bijl and Martin Peitz focus on both the transitory and the persistent asymmetries between telephone companies, investigating the extent to which access price and retail price regulation stimulate both short- and long-term competition. They explore and compare various settings, such as non-linear versus linear pricing, facilities-based versus unbundling-based or carrier-select-based competition, non-segmented versus segmented markets. On the basis of their analysis, De Bijl and Peitz then formulate guidelines for policy. This book is a valuable resource for academics, regulators and telecommunications professionals. It is accompanied by simulation programs devised by the authors both to establish and to illustrate their results.

Goran Palm - a well-known Swedish writer and poet - went to work incognito in one of the factories of LM Ericsson. He did this to obtain a better understanding of the life of the manual worker in a large factory, and to gain from that understanding a more mature political view. Going into a factory and joining a particular work group enabled the author to see beyond the monolithic idea of the working class and to know and appreciate his fellow workers as individuals. The writing is more literary than scientific, the language is concrete, and portraits, satire and dialogue are mixed to provide a full and lively picture into which the development of Palm's ideas is inserted. His particular concern is the worker's tendency to regard work as a depressing overture to the leisure time constantly in his thoughts. This is what Palm means by The Flight from Work.

The mobile telecommunications industry is one of the most rapidly growing sectors around the world. This book offers a comprehensive economic analysis of the main determinants of growth in the industry. Harald Gruber demonstrates the importance of competitive entry and the setting of technological standards, both of which play a central role in their contribution to the fast diffusion of technology. Detailed country studies provide empirical evidence for the development of the main themes: the diffusion of mobile telecommunications services, the pricing policies in network industries, the role of entry barriers such as radio spectrum and spectrum allocation procedures. This research-based survey will appeal to a wide range of applied industrial economists within universities, government and the industry itself.

This volume, the result of the 21st Conference on Postal and Delivery Economics (Ireland, 2013), describes the continuing problem of the decline of the postal sector in the face of electronic competition and offers strategies for the survival of mail services in a digital age.The 25 original papers in this collection provide econometric analyses on the changing demand and elasticity of mail in the modern era. Proposed solutions to declining interest in the postal sector include closer links between mail services and the digital sphere, expansion of the parcel sector, changes to the universal service obligation, legal reform and regulatory change. Professors and students of regulatory economics will have an interest in this book, as will managers and other decision-makers working within the postal sector. Contributors include: D. Bailly, L. Balk Hope, C. Borsenberger, A.T. Bozzo, M.D. Bradley, T.J. Brennan, K.L. Capogrossi, I. Carslake, M.M. Cigno, K.K. Clendenin, J. Colvin, H. Cremer, M.A. Crew, P. De Donder, B.K. Eakin, R. Eccles, K. Elkela, A. Fratini, F. Fustier, R.R. Geddes, D. Geradin, B. Gough, A. Gustafsson, A. Haller, J. Hearn, H. Hennessy, A. Hildingsson, A.C. Houck, G. Houpis, C. Jaag, L. Janin, D. Joram, S. Lecou, J. Levin, C. Malamataris, B. Marsh, M. Meidinger, M. Moloney, H. Nikali, C.J. Paterson, E.S. Pearsall, M.K. Perkins, J. Pickett, R. Sahly, S. Selander, C. Sheedy, M. Srinivasan, V.I. Stanford, C. Strobel, G. Swinand, U. Trinkner, T. Uotila, J. Vantomme, T. Walsh

Wireless entrepreneurs are transforming the way people live and work around the globe. In the process they have created some of the fastest growing companies on the planet. Anytime, Anywhere tells the story of the birth and explosion of cellular and wireless communications as seen through the eyes of one of the industry's pioneers, Sam Ginn. As deregulation and privatization swept the globe, Ginn and his team at AirTouch Communications fought for and won licenses on several continents. They built a successful business using strategic partnerships and joint ventures and demonstrated a new model for global entrepreneurship in an information-based economy. Louis Galombos is Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University. He has written numerous books and articles on entrepreneurship, innovation and regulation, including Networks of Innovation (Cambridge, 1996) and The Rise of the Corporate Commonwealth (Basic, 1989), He is President of the Business History Group. Eric Abrahamson is Principal Historian with The Prologue Group. His research has dealt with telecommunications, banking and regulation in California.

Commercial satellites are used to provide a variety of fixed satellite services, ranging from consumer satellite television and broadband to military communications in remote regions. This book examines the changes that have occurred in the fixed satellite services industry since 2000 and the effects these changes could have on the relationship between satellite operators and service providers. Also discussed is the commercial communications industry's use of and reliance on the GPS, in accordance with White House direction to tailor the effort to enable a quick response. The National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) notes that reliance on GPS signals in military, maritime, aviation, and other civil environments varies widely depending on the specific use and application.

In 1984, the Department of Justice settled its antitrust case against AT&T. The agreement, embedded in the Modification of Final Judgment, led to a divestiture of the local telephone exchanges from AT&T to the Regional Bell Operating Companies (known as the Baby Bells). This agreement gave unprecedented power over a major US industry to one man, Judge Harold Greene of the US District Court of the District of Columbia. The Baby Bells could not enter any line of business without approval from Judge Greene. With technological change it became increasingly desirable for the Baby Bells to enter different lines of business, but each attempt was subject to legal challenge and lengthy, costly litigation. In 1994, the Baby Bells mounted a major legal challenge to the Modification of Final Judgement (MFJ). As part of their strategy, they asked leading scholars in the field to examine the costs and benefits of the MFJ and provide evidence in the form of affidavits regarding its effect. Using a cost-benefit framework, the conclusion of the analysis is that the MFJ should be vacated and competition should be allowed in the industry. Deregulating Telecommunications draws together a group of leading practitioners and academics in the fields of regulation, industrial organisation and antitrust to explore:

• A cost-benefit analysis of the 1984 AT&T antitrust settlement
• Theoretical and empirical studies that analyse the results of the settlement from its inception in 1984 to 1994
• An explanation for the recent policy decisions to reduce the amount of regulation in telecommunications
• Analysis vital to predicting the results of any deregulation in telecommunications in the future

Regulation continues to be an important issue in the postal and delivery sector of the global economy. This latest volume in the Advances in Regulatory Economics series reflects the latest research on trends and policies affecting the postal sector and progress made in the industry's competitive agenda. It is global in scope and covers a broad range of legal and economic issues from leading scholars, researchers, and policy makers.Topics covered include: service quality and price caps, the impact of price regulation on service quality, financing the USO, cost analysis and pricing of innovative postal products, postal demand studies, the effects of intermedia competition; mail order demand; Internet advertising, trends in direct mail, legal and regulatory issues related to the postal sector, competitive strategies in the parcel market, and environmental impacts of mail. The book also provides concrete analyses of the driving forces underlying restructuring, transformation and privatization strategies of postal operators. Scholars and practitioners in public sector economics and postal regulation will appreciate this in-depth treatment of their industry.

* Worldwide telecom spending was over $4 trillion in 2004, and virtually all 12 million businesses in the U.S. buy phone and other telecom services* Our book shows people at small and medium-sized businesses how to make sense of telecom lingo and get the best deals* Includes an overview of the major players in the telecom industry and an easy-to-understand explanation of the existing telecom infrastructure* Helps people pinpoint the telecom services best suited to their business needs, understand billing, and troubleshoot problems* Covers emerging industry trends, such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and how they can help businesses cut costs

The completion of the Transcontinental Telegraph in 1861 completed telegraphy's mile-by-mile trek across the West. In addition to linking the coasts, the telegraph represented an extraordinary American effort in many fields of endeavor to know, act upon, and control a continent. Merging new research with bold interpretation, James Schwoch details the unexplored dimensions of the frontier telegraph and its impact. The westward spread of telegraphy entailed encounters with environments that challenged Americans to acquire knowledge of natural history, climate, and a host of other fields. Telegraph codes and ciphers, meanwhile, became important political, military, and economic secrets. Schwoch shows how the government's use of commercial networks drove a relationship between the two sectors that served increasingly expansionist aims. He also reveals the telegraph's role in securing high ground and encouraging surveillance. Both became vital aspects of the American effort to contain, and conquer, the West's indigenous peoples-and part of a historical arc of concerns about privacy, data gathering, and surveillance that remains pertinent today. Entertaining and enlightening, Wired into Nature explores an unknown history of the West.

A few years ago, there were hundreds of "dot com millionaires." When the Internet bubble burst and the smoke cleared, few of those titans were left standing. Howard Jonas and his company, IDT, were among the few survivors, and IDT now ranks among the top players in the telecommunications field. Maybe it's got something to do with Jonas. His quirky personality is anything but average. He doesn't run IDT the way Wall Street wants him to. He does it his way, and his attitude toward business and life - strongly grounded in his traditional Jewish values - is refreshingly uncommon. ..". exemplary in his pursuit for truth and ... his ability to adopt his findings into his own life." -- Morry Weiss, chairman of the American Greetings Corporation ..". the book reads as the story of a Jew seeking to translate passionate memory into passionate purpose." -- Richard Joel, president, Yeshiva University "An easy and entertaining read, this book is a must for people of all faiths " -- Eric Cantor, Deputy Majority Whip, U.S. Congress (R-Virginia) "An extraordinary baring of Howard Jonas' soul. Thoughtful, insightful, moving. A great read " --Shelley Berkley, Representative, U.S. Congress (D-Nevada) This book is an entertaining, enlightening, occasionally intense first-person glimpse at Howard's take on life. Look at the world through his eyes and you're guaranteed to see things differently. For readers who enjoyed: Trump: The Art of the Deal (9780345479174), The Warren Buffett Way (9780471743675), Rich Dad, Poor Dad (9780446567404), God in the Marketplace (9780805446883)

China's economic rise and influence has been one of the most significant developments in the global economy of recent times. A driving force behind this expansion has been the private entrepreneurs and companies of China, some of which have literally redefined the economic and business landscape, both inside and outside of China. With a $15,000 loan from his father, the former high school dropout and factory worker Wang Wei started up his courier delivery service, SF Express, in 1993. This book is a classic rags-to-riches story of a young entrepreneur who grew SF Express into a logistics empire with revenues of $7 billion and 400,000 employees by 2015. The phenomenal rise of Wang and his company was further propelled by a $30 billion public listing in Shanghai in 2018. By any standards, this is one of the most remarkable entrepreneurial stories of recent times.

Identifying a form of government intervention in social and economic affairs called public service liberalism, Alan Stone looks to that ideology to confront the problems of the 1990s and beyond. He shows in this fascinating case study that the policy has been effective in the past: the American telephone industry from its inception until 1934 is an illustration of how public service liberalism served both economic efficiency and a complex structure of public values. Stone depicts the stages by which public service liberalism was replaced by less adequate policies and suggests ways that it could be successfully restored. Furthermore, Stone demonstrates that government-business relationships like the one that prevailed in the telephone industry were common in the nineteenth and the early twentieth century. He argues that this period was not an era of laissez-faire, as is often alleged, but that its economic energy and extraordinary technological progress were accompanied by complete acceptance of certain kinds of government intervention. Challenging the presuppositions not only of the new ideologists of deregulation, privatization, and competition but also of the practitioners of what he calls the "sanctimonious muddle" of present-day liberalism, Stone demonstrates that public service liberalism could help resolve current problems, such as those in the savings and loan institutions and the cable television industry. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In less than three decades, Nokia emerged from Finland to lead the mobile phone revolution. It grew to have one of the most recognizable and valuable brands in the world and then fell into decline, leading to the sale of its mobile phone business to Microsoft. This book explores and analyzes that journey and distils observations and learning points for anyone keen to understand what drove Nokia's amazing success and sudden downfall. With privileged access to Nokia's senior managers over the last twenty years followed by a more concerted research agenda from 2015, the authors describe and analyze, the various stages in Nokia's journey. The book describes leaders making strategic and organizational decisions, their behavior and interactions, and how they succeeded and failed to inspire and engage their employees. Perhaps most intriguingly, it opens the proverbial 'black box' of why and how things actually happen at the top of organizations. Why did things fall apart? To what extent were avoidable mistakes made? Did the world around Nokia change too fast for it to adapt? And, did Nokia's success contain the seeds of its failure?

In February 1997, 69 countries accounting for 95 percent of world telecommunications traffic agreed to open their basic telecommunications service markets. In April 1997, 28 countries accounting for 80 percent of world trade in information technology (IT) goods agreed to eliminate tariffs on IT goods by January 2000. These two agreements represent significant steps toward global telecommunication liberalization. The agreements also mark the beginning of new battles that will determine the extent of competition and reform in the telecommunications industry in the 21st century. Although implementation of the two pacts will be phased in over several years, some signatory countries are already facing a backlash from local telecommunications companies and equipment suppliers. Hence the issue remains highly contentious around the world. In this volume, leading scholars from different countries offer their assessments of the two new agreements. They also predict the evolution of the telecommunications industry in the years ahead. The volume provides essential background on future developments in this dynamic and crucial sector, and suggests ways in which it can be shaped to provide maximum benefits for the world economy.

In 2001, Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro launched a crusade to privatize Japan's postal services. The plan was hailed as a necessary structural reform, but many bemoaned the loss of traditional institutions and the conservative values they represented. Few expected the plan to succeed, given the staunch opposition of diverse parties, but four years later it appeared that Koizumi had transformed not only the post office but also the very institutional and ideological foundations of Japanese finance and politics. By all accounts, it was one of the most astonishing political achievements in postwar Japanese history. Patricia L. Maclachlan analyzes the interplay among the institutions, interest groups, and leaders involved in the system's evolution from the early Meiji period until 2010. Exploring the postal system's remarkable range of economic, social, and cultural functions and its institutional relationship to the Japanese state, this study shows how the post office came to play a leading role in the country's political development. It also looks into the future to assess the resilience of Koizumi's reforms and consider the significance of lingering opposition to the privatization of one of Japan's most enduring social and political sanctuaries.

This book provides a complete and comprehensive overview of 3G UMTS charging services Evolving from offline billing of traditional telecommunications, charging for IP services in mobile networks is challenging; charging convergence is one of the major trends in the telecom industry. Advanced mobile telecommunications incorporates data applications with real-time control and management, and requires a convergent and flexible online charging system. Such convergence is essential to mitigate fraud and credit risks in order to provide more personalized information to users about charges and credit limit controls. Charging for Mobile All-IP Telecommunications provides comprehensive and practical coverage of online and offline charging based on mobile operator experiences, and the latest efforts undertaken by the UMTS specifications. Key features: * Presents a complete overview of the telecommunications charging system, including the evolution from 2G to 3G and all-IP network charging frameworks* Discusses all management aspects related to charging and billing processes, with a focus on the major trends and developments within the telecoms industry* Provides an overview of the telecom networks such as PSTN, GSM, UMTS and IMS* Covers the concepts of the telecom charging on mobile services and the new technologies for implementing online charging system, such as GTP' and Diameter protocol* Contains coverage on network nodes and data flows in relation to charging of mobile applications, such as IMS call and content downloading* Explains the IP-based online charging system, protocol details and recent trends in charging for mobile telecom industry This book is an invaluable resource for graduate students, telecoms and IP engineers, network service providers and system architects. Information technologists and networking equipment manufacturers will also find this book insightful.

Identifying a form of government intervention in social and economic affairs called public service liberalism, Alan Stone looks to that ideology to confront the problems of the 1990s and beyond. He shows in this fascinating case study that the policy has been effective in the past: the American telephone industry from its inception until 1934 is an illustration of how public service liberalism served both economic efficiency and a complex structure of public values. Stone depicts the stages by which public service liberalism was replaced by less adequate policies and suggests ways that it could be successfully restored. Furthermore, Stone demonstrates that government-business relationships like the one that prevailed in the telephone industry were common in the nineteenth and the early twentieth century. He argues that this period was not an era of laissez-faire, as is often alleged, but that its economic energy and extraordinary technological progress were accompanied by complete acceptance of certain kinds of government intervention. Challenging the presuppositions not only of the new ideologists of deregulation, privatization, and competition but also of the practitioners of what he calls the "sanctimonious muddle" of present-day liberalism, Stone demonstrates that public service liberalism could help resolve current problems, such as those in the savings and loan institutions and the cable television industry.

Originally published in 1991.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This 2005 book is a comparative history of the economic organisation of energy, telecommunications and transport in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It examines the role that private and public enterprise have played in the construction and operation of the railways, electricity, gas and water supply, tramways, coal, oil and natural gas industries, telegraph, telephone, computer networks and other modern telecommunications. The book begins with the arrival of the railways in the 1830s, charts the development of arms' length regulation, municipalisation and nationalisation, and ends on the eve of privatisation in the 1980s. Robert Millward argues that the role of ideology, especially in the form of debates about socialism and capitalism, has been exaggerated. Instead the driving forces in changes in economic organisation were economic and technological factors and the book traces their influence in shaping the pattern of regulation and ownership of these key sectors of modern economies.

This book examines competition and regulation in the liberalized telecommunications markets. It fills the gap between the existing economic literature on competition and the real-life application of theory to policy. Paul de Bijl and Martin Peitz analyze a broad range of market constellations; in particular, the hot topic of access price regulation in asymmetric markets. The study is a valuable resource for academics, regulators and telecommunications professionals. It is accompanied by extensive simulation programs.

Telecommunication Services provides a holistic approach to understand telecommunications systems by addressing the emergence and domination of new digital services, consumer and economic dynamics, and the creation of content by service providers. * Includes services, underlying technologies, and internal capabilities for social network advertising * Covers market dynamics that determine the successes and failures of service offerings * Discusses the impact of smartphones (iPhone launch) on the telecommunications and mobile device industry