New Directions in Telecommunications Policy: Information policy and economic policy
New Directions in Telecommunications Policy: Information policy and economic policy

Author: Paula R. Newberg

Publisher: Durham [N.C.] : Duke University Press

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13:

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Communications policy as been a fertile area for testing theories of regulation, subsidy and incentives, free speech, political participation, and the public interest. The capacities of new communications technology have changed markedly since much of the governing legislation in the communications field was written. Such a change is likely to continue and have considerable impact on specific communications sectors and in communications policy. This two volume set of analyses undertakes a review of telecommunications policy in transition--of actions taken and not taken, of goals pursued or ignored, of the adequacy of policy vehicles and their strengths and weaknesses. The authors evaluate three categories of policy problems: those of concept, scope, and judgment in communications policy; those specific to media industries and forces affecting them; and those concerning wider public policy concerns intersecting with communication.

Competition, Regulation, and Convergence
Competition, Regulation, and Convergence

Author: Sharon E. Gillett

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 1999-09-01

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 1135661871

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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.

Regulation and the Performance of Communication and Information Networks
Regulation and the Performance of Communication and Information Networks

Author: Gerald R. Faulhaber

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2012-01-01

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 1781007144

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'Due to their economic characteristics and also to their consequences on many aspects of collective life, information networks have always been at the edge of regulatory innovations and at the center of policy debates. The contributors of this volume combine long term visions of the factors determining regulatory policies with up-to-date analyses of technicalities to be dealt with, to provide the reader with an extended understanding of the issues and constraints shaping the future of digital networks.' Eric Brousseau, Université Paris-Dauphine, France and the European University Institute, Italy Digital markets worldwide are in rapid flux. The Internet and World Wide Web have traditionally evolved in a largely deregulated environment, but recently governments have shown great interest in this rapidly developing sector and are imposing regulations for a variety of reasons that are changing the shape of these industries. This book explores why the industrial organization of broadband ISPs, Internet backbone providers and content/application providers are in such turmoil. The expert contributors straddle the turbulent past of the telecoms sector and also contribute to its exciting though unpredictable future via positive analysis of past communications policies, which is then utilized to deduce lessons to guide future policy making decisions. It is illustrated that broadband ISPs no longer simply provide a conduit for service delivery; they are also involved in producing content and transaction services themselves, in competition with content and delivery providers. The blurring of the traditional lines between these three sectors, as each enters into the others' markets, is highlighted. The conclusion is that we are witnessing the emergence of powerful, competing platforms, linked in complex ways that challenge traditional economic analyses. Exploring governance issues, regulation and investment, next-generation service markets and wireless communication, this book will prove a fascinating and illuminating read for scholars, researchers, post-graduate students and policymakers with an interest in ICT, technology and innovation, economics and industrial organization.

The Need for Speed
The Need for Speed

Author: Robert E. Litan

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2013-01-28

Total Pages: 98

ISBN-13: 0815724446

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The twenty-first-century telecommunications landscape is radically different from the one that prevailed as recently as the last decade of the twentieth century. Robert Litan and Hal Singer argue that given the speed of innovation in this sector, the Federal Communications Commission's outdated policies and rules are inhibiting investment in the telecom industry, specifically in fast broadband networks. This pithy handbook presents the kind of fundamental rethinking needed to bring communications policy in line with technological advances. Fast broadband has huge societal benefits, enabling all kinds of applications in telemedicine, entertainment, retailing, education, and energy that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. Those benefits would be even greater if the FCC adopted policies that encouraged more broadband providers, especially wireless providers, to make their services available in the roughly half of the country where consumers currently have no choice in wireline providers offering download speeds that satisfy the FCC's current standards. The authors' recommendations include allowing broadband providers to charge for premium delivery services; embracing a rule-of-reason approach to all matters involving vertical arrangements; stripping the FCC of its merger review authority because both the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department have the authority to stop anticompetitive mergers; eliminating the FCC's ability to condition spectrum purchases on the identity, business plans, or spectrum holdings of a bidder; and freeing telephone companies from outdated regulations that require them to maintain both a legacy copper network and a modem IP network. These changes and others advanced in this book would greatly enhance consumer welfare with respect to telecommunications services and the applications built around them.

The Making of Telecommunications Policy
The Making of Telecommunications Policy

Author: Dick Olufs

Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9781555877071

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The Making of Telecommunications Policy examines the history, politics, and impact of telecommunications policy. Beginning with a comparison of several alternate views of the future, Olufs explains how government action makes the widespread use of some new technologies more likely than others. He details the challenges that rapid advances in communications technologies pose for policymaking institutions and considers the ways that government responds to the ideological, economic, and political interests of industry, private advocacy groups, and individuals. Olufs discussed the recent trend toward deregulation and provides a full analysis of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, including the politics of its enactment and its long-term implications for both industry and the daily lives of citizens.

Talk is Cheap
Talk is Cheap

Author: Robert W. Crandall

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2010-12-01

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 0815719701

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The rapid pace of technological change is placing the world's telephone companies in a very difficult position. Fiber optics cables, wireless telephones, digital signal compression, and sophisticated new switching equipment are lowering the cost of providing service and opening the gates to new competition. At the same time, these new technologies are providing the telephone companies with a wide array of new market opportunities. Unfortunately, their status as regulated carriers makes it difficult to exploit these new opportunities and to fend off competitive assaults on their traditional telephone business. As long as they are regulated, they can be accused of using their monopoly services to cross-subsidize new competitive ventures. But partial deregulation and open entry would be a catastrophe for them unless they were allowed to revise their rate structure. There is a widespread misconception that the U.S. telecommunications industry has been "deregulated" and that Canadian authorities are following the U.S. lead. In fact, most services remain regulated, even though some markets, such as long-distance services, equipment sales and rentals, and local services, have been opened up. This book reviews the recent changes in the structure of U.S. and Canadian telecommunications industries and the changes in regulatory policy on both sides of the border. The authors analyze the effects of these changes in regulation on telephone rates in both the local and long-distance markets with particular emphasis on the impacts of regulatory reforms and competition on long-distance rates. They use their results to suggest how regulation should be structured to allow competition to replace monopoly on the road to the information superhighway. The authors contend that for decades misguided regulation of the telephone sector in both Canada and the U.S. denied consumers the benefits of competition, distorted local and long-distance telephone rates, and blocked en

Regulation and the Evolution of the Global Telecommunications Industry
Regulation and the Evolution of the Global Telecommunications Industry

Author: Anastassios Gentzoglanis

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1849805245

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After decades of liberalization of the telecommunications industry around the world and technological convergence that allows for increasing competition, sector-specific regulation of telecommunications has been on the decline. As a result, the telecommunications industry stands in the middle of a debate that calls for either a total deregulation of access to broadband infrastructures or a separation of infrastructure from service delivery. This book proposes new approaches to dealing with the current and future issues of regulation of telecommunication markets on both a regional and a global scale. This volume represents a valuable compendium of ideas regarding global trends in the telecommunications industry that focus on market and regulatory issues and company strategies. With an international cast of contributors, Regulation and the Evolution of the Global Telecommunications Industry also provides insight into topics including: mobile Internet development, structural function and separation, global experiences with next generation networks, technology convergence and the role of regulation, and the regulatory impact on the balance between static and dynamic efficiencies. The empirical evidence and experiences presented here illustrate the diversity of thoughts and research that characterize this important area of academic and business research. Thus, it will be a critical reference for scholars and students of regulatory economics, policy and finance and researchers and administrators of the telecom industry.