Telecommunications systems are central to the development of a global economy, and are fundamental to the means by which most business is conducted, organised and managed. Supported by recent sophisticated econometric analyses, the International Telecommunications Union considers the link between telecommunications and economic development to be axiomatic. This volume takes a broader view. Four themes are considered: Telecommunications and Development focuses on new technology diffusion, and the regional impact of telecommunications investment. International Dimensions provides an examination of the political, strategic and legal environment within which new communications technology evolves and is employed. Organisational Aspects is concerned with organisation-specific analyses of the role and impact of telecommunications within firms. Such an approach avoids the 'telecommunications as oil' treatment of much recent analysis. Country Studies examines telecommunications issues in the Asia-Pacific region, South America, and the former communist nations of Central and Eastern Europe. The papers tacitly stress the importance of path dependence; that is, institutional features and history, are important in determining telecommunications futures.

Hardbound. Telematics in Education provides readers with an exciting examination of the use of computer based communication technologies within education. Discussion ranges from whether new forms of teaching and learning involving telematics can replace existing methods, to how far collaborative learning can take place through telematics.The authors consider the possible implications for psychological and organisational issues in education and how an increased use of telematics could radically alter the relationship between education and society.

In this timely collection of essays, leading economic and communication scholars examine major policy issues confronting federal and state regulators in the telecommunications industry. The essays describe how past regulatory decisions have contributed to a growing tension between emerging competition and the preservation of specific social objectives like the continuance of universal service, and thus provide a unique perspective on the current public policy debates. Although each author discusses a different policy issue, the common theme in this volume is the compelling argument that past regulatory decisions, which were often motivated by political compromises rather than sound economic analysis, are the primary source of inefficiency that exists in the telecommunications industry today.

This insight points to potential harm that legislators may create from ignoring economic forces when deregulating an industry. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is an example in which deregulation has created more, not less, regulatory barriers affecting competitors. The authors challenge policy makers to consider no regulation to insure that competitive forces determine prices, quantities, and quality of service for the vast array of telecommunication services available in today's marketplace.

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 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.

Throughout the world, governments are reducing their involvement in the area of telecommunications. Some telecommunications are being fully or partly privatized while others are experiencing deregulation. The situation in six Asian countries, four European countries, and two Latin American countries are examined. In addition, there is one chapter on the telecommunications business in developing countries as a whole. All sections explore the interaction with encroaching competition, new technology, and a desire for greater freedom.

Many countries have attempted to employ privatization programs to restructure their economies; however, some of the programs are rejected by the polity in the early stages of consideration. Research on privatization has mainly focused on programs that have been accepted, but it often ignores issues associated with rejection. Dr. Molano breaks new ground by examining the microeconomic, macroeconomic, and political factors that shape all outcomes of privatization. A case study method is employed to review attempts to privatize state-owned telephone companies in countries in the southern cone of Latin America. The study is further generalized to cover 23 attempts to privatize telephone companies from 1985 to 1995.

Strategies linking the dynamic and changing world of telecommunication to local desires for economic growth are at the heart of this important book. In the age of information, grass roots political leaders have discovered telecommunications as they seek to boost local employment and community well-being. Taking the cases of Richardson, Texas, a Dallas suburb that has attracted over 50,000 high-tech jobs, city-state Singapore, which has successfully upgraded its telecommunications infrastructure to lure information-intensive companies, Atlanta, using the 1996 Olympics to advance its information-technology base, and others, the authors critically examine the successes and failures of each. Their conclusions will be invaluable to planners, politicians, and scholars who want to know whether and how advanced telecommunications infrastructure leads to accelerated economic development.

Hardbound. The convergence of telecommunications, mass media and computer technologies has brought spectacular developments of ubiquitous intelligent interconnected systems. In the course of these evolutionary changes, debate and policy has swung again towards privatization, deregulation and increased reliance upon competition. Nevertheless, the underlying and powerful role of new information continues to bring so much restructuring and organizational change, that a reassessment of ideas about competition in this dynamic context, is essential. The aim of this volume is to provide an update of research and policy debates in this important field. An international perspective is provided with contributions from academic, business and governmental communities. The volume will be invaluable to researchers in telecommunications and information activities; decision-makers in industry, government and regulatory fields; consultants; and information service provide

Hardbound. Global changes in policy and technology in the telecommunications industry in the 1990s are described and analysed in this volume, showing how this industry creates a bridge for society's transition to the next century. Dynamic innovations in technology are encouraging a relatively free world market and a Global Information Infrastructure for use by developed and developing economies. The volume discusses the challenges posed by these innovations for closing the gap between the information-rich and information-poor. Lessons are included for corporate and individual users as they prepare for the Global Information Infrastructure. Societal impacts of new networks, multimedia, cellular communications, equipment standards, telemedia, digital cash, the Internet, and innovative satellite systems are explored in detail with a view to future developments.

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 telecommunications reform. It provides universal conclusions that might help predict the success or failure of telecommunications policies, such as, privatization and liberalization, in other nations that are moving towards reform. This book is an original contribution to our understanding of the rapid and often complex transformations in telecommunications policies. It defies previous assumptions about conditions for success and failure of policy implementation. Although numerous publications deal with telecommunications policy reform in Europe or the United States, little has been written about it in the developing world. This book fills the gap and will be invaluable for academics, policy makers, and others concerned with communications, economic development, and international business.

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.

Changes within European telecommunication systems have been analyzed by the author with the purpose of exploring the social, political, and economic conditions that will determine the emergence of a new continental communication infrastructure by 1992. Alfred L. Thimm examines the commonly neglected institutional factors that have shaped the different responses of British, French, and German political and economic elites to both technological changes and the European Community's telecommunication strategy. The concepts of political economy are applied to explore the views and vested interests of adversaries in the intense struggle over the reform of the telecommunication systems in these key countries.

Thimm briefly reviews the historical and political roots of the telecommunication administrations in Great Britain, France, and Germany, and the technological and political events that have undermined existing institutions. He emphasizes the national importance of telecommunication as a strategic industry and its vital role as an integral part of the integrated European infrastructure. He considers the strategic role of technical standards as a device that simultaneously harmonizes European networks and serves as a marketing obstacle to non-European enterprises. The winners and losers in the struggle to adapt European telecom policy to new technological and political conditions are clearly identified.

Noam's book is the first major attempt to address the complicated economic and public policy issues of telecommunications in Europe. He provides a thorough discussion of the evolution of central telephone networks, equipment supply, new value-added networks, and new telecommunications-related services in a detailed country-by-country analysis.

Drawing on the rich and unexplored Bell Canada archives in Montreal, Martin analyses the development of the telephone system in Canada, particularly in Ontario and Quebec, from 1878 to 1920. Bell Telephone originally envisaged the telephone as a business tool for a relatively small group of male professionals. The women who worked as operators -- an occupation which rapidly became a female ghetto -- played a key role in mediating the demands of telephone users and the limitations of the new technology. The many women who began to use the telephone for domestic, two-way communication eventually forced Bell Telephone to change its approach and ultimately transformed the telephone's social impact. Through a critical examination of the political and economic aspects of the development of telephone systems, Martin outlines changes in the nature of women's economic experience and in their participation in the community. She analyses the transformation of the telephone into a "public utility," stressing the ever-present economic incentives at the base of Bell Canada's decision making. She also examines the impact of this new technology on women and the labour process and on women's social and cultural practices. Her study not only provides an important understanding of a particular period but also insight into the effect of new communication technology on social structure.

Since the breakup of AT&T in the early 1980s, many scholars and others have argued that telecommunications regulatory policy, especially at the state level, must change dramatically to fit new market conditions. To others, particularly state regulators, lawmakers, and smaller competitors, the proper response is one of slow, incremental change in regulatory policy. This volume explores these issues 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. The result is an unusually comprehensive treatment of the complex regulatory issues facing the telecommunications industry today. The volume is divided into two primary sections which deal with market power and cost allocation in turn. The first part opens with a paper which examines market power from the perspective of legal analytics. Two economists then employ the methodologies of antitrust law and economics to survey the approaches of various states to the problem of identifying telecommunications market power. The third main paper in this section analyzes the market power concept from the particular economic perspective of contestable market theory. Turning to cost allocation issues, the contributors argue for the applicability to long distance markets of a new cost allocation methodology developed by NRRI for local exchange service. The topic is then approached by using a series of regulatory fables in which various possible incentive schemes are used to induce supposedly efficient behavior, with cost allocation as a resulting side issue. Each main paper is followed by one or more critical discussant papers. Finally, contributor Alfred Kahn draws on his long experience as a scholar and regulator to examine the current problems of telecommunications regulation in their historical context and to make some predictions about the future course of regulation in the industry. An important contribution to the business literature, this volume is a must acquisition for any library dealing with the telecommunication industry.

Until telegraph lines spanned the continent in the 1860s, the post office and the press worked together as the most important mechanism for distributing news and public information. Public policy linked these complementary communication agencies; the post office provided free and low-cost news-gathering services for the press as well as subsidized delivery of publications to readers. News in the Mail charts the relationship between the press and post office from colonial times through the Civil War. The book explains why the federal government underwrote the circulation of printed matter and how the postal policies governing public information reflected the cultural tensions of the early and mid-nineteenth century. News in the Mail not only looks at the government's role in disseminating news and promoting communication, but also examines the structure and implications of the early U.S. communication system. This book is a valuable source for those interested in journalism, communications history, the history of federal policies and operations, postal history, and nineteenth-century American social history.

This book approaches the subject with a clear grasp of the underlying concepts, and appreciation for the politics and choices that shape them, and a nonpartisan perspective the permits an objective overview. Because of a lack of understanding, participants in the telecommunications/computer industry often take stands counter to their own interests. Further-more, allies in one area may be competitors in another. The volume presents an accurate account of the hard questions faced by these companies, their regulators, an their customers. The author focuses on issues that remain constant regardless of their shape at a given time. Also illustrated are some concepts, such as local service, that are sheer invention, reflecting politicalaand economic choices.

This popular text takes a hard look at the effect of U.S. communications worldwide and points to the trends and new factors that will be crucial to effective U.S. policy in future international interaction. From popular culture to the news media to public diplomacy, this book examines the growing problems the U.S. must face at the international level. The book addresses the much less-noted public communication content and the trends in the international environment that affect the impact and consequences of the communication substance that passes international boundaries. It articulates as issues agenda for people in both public and private institutions concerned with policies and programs in public diplomacy, news and information flow, educational exchange, or the role of images and perceptions in world affairs.

Recent work in the field of telecommunication economics, with particluar emphasis on its international regulatory aspects, is the focus of the present volume, which assembles an annotated bibliography of nearly four hundred authoritative and up-to-date books and articles on more than fifteen related topics.

This book is intended as a textbook for use in undergraduate and graduate courses in comparative broadcast systems, international broadcasting, and international communication. It also serves as a reference source for professionals in these fields and as a supplement manual text or reader in mass communications courses. Issues addressed include: equity in allocating frequencies and satellite orbits, the New World Information Order debate, transborder spillover and important patterns of TV programming, regulating DBS transmissions, and the future of UNESCO without U.S. participation. More than two dozen tables and maps are included in this volume.