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 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.

Emerging Competition in Postal and Delivery Services brings together practitioners, postal administrators, the courier industry, regulators, academic economists and lawyers to examine important policy and regulatory issues facing the postal and delivery industries. This volume reviews such topics as cost and productivity analysis, universal service and entry, demand analysis and the structure of postal payment system, price regulation and competition.

The European Commission and its member states, along with many others, are wrestling with the problem of how to implement the scheduled liberalization of the postal sector while maintaining the universal service obligation. This book addresses some of these concerns. It is comprised of original essays chosen from among several dozen presented at the 13th Conference on Postal and Delivery Economics, which was held in Antwerp, Belgium, in June, 2005.

This volume examines the emerging tele-environment in the U.S. and abroad. Chapters deal with the global outlook, policy perspectives, future systems, telecommunictions for national development and problems and prospects for tomorrow's telecommunications. The contributors represent a cross section of the major telecommunication business and industry from the U.S., Canada, Japan, Europe, Brazil and India as well as the ITU and INTELSAT.

This study investigates whether the existing regulatory framework governing the telecommunications sector in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa effectively deals with emerging competition-related concerns in the liberalised sector. Using Uganda as a case study, it analyses the relevant provisions of the law governing competition in the telecommunications sector, and presents three key findings: Firstly, while there is comprehensive legislation on interconnection and spectrum management, inefficient enforcement of the legislation has perpetuated concerns surrounding spectrum scarcity and interconnection. Secondly, the legislative framework governing anti-competitive behaviour, though in line with the established principles of competition law, is not sufficient. Specifically, the framework is not equipped to govern the conduct of multinational telecommunications groups that have a strong presence in the telecommunications sector. Major factors hampering efficient competition regulation include Uganda's sole reliance on sector-specific competition rules, restricted available remedies, and a regulator with limited experience of enforcing competition legislation. The weaknesses in the framework strongly suggest the need to adopt an economy-wide competition law. Lastly, wireless technology is the main means through which the population in Uganda accesses telecommunications services. Greater emphasis should be placed on regulating conduct in the wireless communications markets.

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

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.

This timely volume provides a comprehensive view of the economic and social research frontiers of the telecommunications and information activities in the Information Age. New technologies and deregulation characterize this rapidly growing sector, which is assuming an increasingly international character. These changes are generating a wide range of local, regional and international policy issues. An international group drawn from research, industry and policy communities outline the important frontiers on which research efforts should focus. The book emphasizes the need for the implementation of such economic and social research.

Managing Change in the Postal and Delivery Industries brings together practitioners, postal administrators, the express industry, regulators, economists and lawyers to examine the important policy and regulatory issues facing the postal and delivery industries. This volume reviews such topics as international postal policy, the universal service obligation, regulation and competition, entry and the role of scale and scope economics, cost analysis in postal services, and service standards. This book provides a unique perspective on the problems facing postal and delivery networks.

Several formerly independent trends including the in creasing rate of technological change, the demand for greater efficiency and productivity in R&D and innovation, and the need for applying technology to the solution of pressing social and economic problems have recently begun to reinforce each other resulting in renewed interest in technology trans fer activities and research. The proliferation of research efforts in the U. S. and Western Europe, increased corporate and governmental efforts to develop mechanisms and incentives for transfer and the growing closeness between transfer and innovation studies led to the decision to convene a meeting with representatives from both research and practice in trans fer and innovation in order to establish a "state-of-the-art" baseline and to promote discussion between the researchers and practioners from all sectors in the hope that new research will better reflect the realities of current practice and new mechanisms created by practioners might be improved through the use of knowledge generated from research. How close we came~to the second goal is a question which must be left to the fut~re. The proceedings which follow re flect the first goal. If the papers and conclusions occasional ly appear to be contradictory or repetitive, or naive, or over ly pessimistic or simply based upon too narrow a base or re search or experience, they are an accurate reflection of both the state-of-the-art and the lack of communications among in dividuals and organizations involved in similar activities.

This book shows how the hybrid model, which uses both market and committee mechanisms, explains standard setting and firm competition in the mobile communications industry. The hybrid model explains why certain mobile communication standards like GSM have become global standards while others, for example digital standards supposed by US firms, have not become global standards. The hybrid model also explains why Nokia is the leading producer of mobile phones and Ericsson the leading producer of mobile infrastructure.

When Postmaster General Creswell penned his concern about the impact 2 of electronic diversion on his postal organization, the year was 1872. General Creswell, it turned out, fretted unnecessarily. Facsimile did not achieve commercial viability until roughly a century after his tenure as Postmaster General and today that technology is fading rapidly from the communication scene. Moreover, it never appears to have significantly affected physical letter volumes. However, if General Creswell were leading a major postal organization today, he likely would feel threatened by the potential of Internet communication to cause electronic diversion of physical mail. Should recent technology developments cause the oft-predicted (but so far incorrect) inflection point that would mark the beginning of declining mail volumes. the implications from a management standpoint will be profound. The relatively fixed nature of postal costs suggest that volume declines must be offset though improved productivity, reduced cost of inputs, revenue from new products that share common costs, or reduced level of universal service.

This is a research and reference guide to the telecommunications industry in the United States, providing an account of legislative and policy changes up until the publication of the work. Contributions by scholars in telecommunications law and policy survey the post-1996 legislative field, giving overviews of the 1996 Act itself, the impact of the legislation on national and international competition, regulation of the industry and the MCI/FCC cases in California, mergers and acquisitions, taxation and FCC reform.

This book provides a conceptual framework to understand and analyze the decline of the telecommunications industry and the rise of information industries. This includes information distribution, banking, advertising, computing, etc. and will use a value-based perspective to show the industry shaping dynamics. The integrative framework will cover issues relevant to all information industries including network externalities, lock in and switching costs, cost structure analysis, transactions costs and infomediaries.

Garrard provides an expert account of the growth and development of markets in the rapidly growing and profitable cellular communications industry. The author brings his invaluable insights to this authoritative analysis of business and regulatory issues, drawing lessons for current business practice. The treatment is global. Market development is described, analyzed and evaluated, bringing the reader up-to-date with current market characteristics and future trends. 514 p.

This book introduces the concepts, applications and development of data science in the telecommunications industry by focusing on advanced machine learning and data mining methodologies in the wireless networks domain. Mining Over Air describes the problems and their solutions for wireless network performance and quality, device quality readiness and returns analytics, wireless resource usage profiling, network traffic anomaly detection, intelligence-based self-organizing networks, telecom marketing, social influence, and other important applications in the telecom industry. Written by authors who study big data analytics in wireless networks and telecommunication markets from both industrial and academic perspectives, the book targets the pain points in telecommunication networks and markets through big data. Designed for both practitioners and researchers, the book explores the intersection between the development of new engineering technology and uses data from the industry to understand consumer behavior. It combines engineering savvy with insights about human behavior. Engineers will understand how the data generated from the technology can be used to understand the consumer behavior and social scientists will get a better understanding of the data generation process.

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.

Most telecom books focus on either traditional telecom billing audits or pure technology, with the cost saving ideas buried deep in the text. Busy decision-makers need the specifics quickly, without having to plow through details that do not affect the economics of a project. Telecommunications Cost Management takes cost saving techniques and brings them to the forefront where managers and decision makers can quickly use them for real world cost reductions or efficiency gains.

Traditional bill auditing texts provide recommendations but only within the context of the existing architecture - for example, they might highlight techniques for reducing circuit switched leased lines but omit the pros and cons of leased lines versus alternatives. Telecommunications Cost Management provides a blueprint for cost reduction across all major technologies - from frame relay to IP telephony to contract recommendations. The text presents the key facts up front, with sample calculations for broadband, local access, equipment, and service alternatives. It provides scenarios showing the effects of different architectural strategies for both voice and data communications. Intended for the busy decision-maker, this reference eliminates the need to wade through unnecessary details and guides the reader directly to the cost saving techniques.

The convergence of telecommunications and broadcasting raises many questions. What form will convergence take in the future? When convergence produces new opportunities in the information, education and entertainment markets, what sort of rules of the game will be required? How will the players behave in these new markets? What policies might be needed?

A study of the changing character of state-society relations in contemporary Thailand, using the telecommunications industry as a case study. It examines the privatization and gradual reforms of the 1980s and 1990s and the political dynamics behind these policies, as well as conflicts and co-operation among the various players and their interests. The book also covers bureaucratic and political corruption and their implications for Thailand's political democratization and economic liberalization. It argues not only that the bureaucracy is no longer the dominant power in Thai politics, but also that the country has moved towards a more pluralistic socio-political system in which a broadly-based liberalization coalition has emerged.