The introduction of new technologies exerts a profound influence on our ways of thinking about current businesses and issues. They quickly make obsolete the products and services that these businesses provide. Nowhere has this been more evident in the early 1990s and the decades before than in the information industries, the focus of this book.

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.

The introduction of new technologies exerts a profound influence on our ways of thinking about current businesses and issues. They quickly make obsolete the products and services that these businesses provide. Nowhere has this been more evident in the early 1990s and the decades before than in the information industries, the focus of this book.