This major reference work provides a thorough and up-to-date survey and analysis of recent developments in the economics of telecommunications. The Handbooks serve both as a source of reference and technical supplement for the field of telecommunications economics. Volume III examines the structure within which modern communications companies operate and evolve, and how corporations must account for multiple objectives associated with both national economic and social policy. The volume draws useful lessons from the recent corporate experience of major international telecommunications companies. The contributors explore the interaction of diversity in national approaches with the ongoing need for international cooperation and coordination, which continues to be an important area of debate. The Handbooks are written at a level intended for professional use by economists, advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and will also prove useful to policy analysts, engineers and managers within the industry.

Global Telecommunications Market Access offers you a solid understanding of the regulatory, economic, business, public policy and other considerations associated with entry into global telecommunications markets from a commercial, governmental and legal perspective. The primary focus of this book is on the global telecommunications regulatory environment and how it impacts market access strategies and implementation of these strategies. You are presented with case studies and a global view of the progression of telecommunications to help you better see how global markets are evolving from being dominated by monopoly service providers to one where choice has become a reality for consumers.

Telecommunication markets are characterized by a dynamic development of technology and market structures. The specific features of network-based markets, convergence of previously separate spheres and the complex task of market regulation put traditional theoretical approaches as well as current regulatory policies to the test. This book sheds light on some of the challenges ahead. It covers a vast range of subjects from the intricacies of market regulation to new markets for mobile and internet-related services. The diffusion of broadband technology and the emergence of new business strategies that respond to the technological and regulatory challenges are treated in the book’s 24 chapters.

In recent years, liberalization, privatization and deregulation have become commonplace in sectors once dominated by government-owned monopolies. In telecommunications, for example, during the 1990s, more than 129 countries established independent regulatory agencies and more than 100 countries privatized the state-owned telecom operator. Why did so many countries liberalize in such a short period of time? For example, why did both Denmark and Burundi, nations different along so many relevant dimensions, liberalize their telecom sectors around the same time? Kirsten L. Rodine-Hardy argues that international organizations – not national governments or market forces – are the primary drivers of policy convergence in the important arena of telecommunications regulation: they create and shape preferences for reform and provide forums for expert discussions and the emergence of policy standards. Yet she also shows that international convergence leaves room for substantial variation among countries, using both econometric analysis and controlled case comparisons of eight European countries.

The mobile telecommunication industry has been one of the fastest growing industries in the global economy since the late 1990s. As the first country to offer commercial Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) cellular service in the world, Korea was able to jump right into the digital mobile markets, enhancing its status as a leading manufacturer of mobile equipment. While the growth of the telecom industry occurred with the emergence of worldwide market-oriented regulatory reform and liberalization in telecommunications, the state-market relationship in Korea evolved from state monopoly toward “centralized governance” and later toward “flexible governance,” which is substantially different from “liberal governance” of the US. This book examines the uniqueness of Korean regulatory reforms of the mobile telecommunication sector, and argues that the market-oriented regulatory reform and liberalization should be explained by focusing on the interactions among the state, the private sector, and international political economic environment. It will appeal to scholars and policy-makers alike concerned with market regulation, Asian development and political economy.

Kiruba Jeyaseeli Benjamin Levi highlights why the Indian telecom market is so attractive to foreign investors. She describes the rules and regulations for telecoms in India, and examines the reasons for success and failure of the foreign telecom companies in India. She identifies the prime sectors of the Indian telecom market for investment and provides recommendations to foreign companies intending to enter the Indian telecom market.

Controlling market power is a crucial issue in liberalised telecommunications markets. By comparatively analysing five countries, this book explores how the regulatory framework should be designed.

Innovation in information and communication technology (ICT) fuels the growth of the global economy. How ICT markets evolve depends on politics and policy, and since the 1950s periodic overhauls of ICT policy have transformed competition and innovation. For example, in the 1980s and the 1990s a revolution in communication policy (the introduction of sweeping competition) also transformed the information market. Today, the diffusion of Internet, wireless, and broadband technology, growing modularity in the design of technologies, distributed computing infrastructures, and rapidly changing business models signal another shift. This pathbreaking examination of ICT from a political economy perspective argues that continued rapid innovation and economic growth require new approaches in global governance that will reconcile diverse interests and enable competition to flourish. The authors (two of whom were architects of international ICT policy reforms in the 1990s) discuss this crucial turning point in both theoretical and practical terms.

Filling in a key chapter in communications history, Dwayne R. Winseck and Robert M. Pike offer an in-depth examination of the rise of the “global media” between 1860 and 1930. They analyze the connections between the development of a global communication infrastructure, the creation of national telegraph and wireless systems, and news agencies and the content they provided. Conventional histories suggest that the growth of global communications correlated with imperial expansion: an increasing number of cables were laid as colonial powers competed for control of resources. Winseck and Pike argue that the role of the imperial contest, while significant, has been exaggerated. They emphasize how much of the global media system was in place before the high tide of imperialism in the early twentieth century, and they point to other factors that drove the proliferation of global media links, including economic booms and busts, initial steps toward multilateralism and international law, and the formation of corporate cartels. Drawing on extensive research in corporate and government archives, Winseck and Pike illuminate the actions of companies and cartels during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, in many different parts of the globe, including Africa, Asia, and Central and South America as well as Europe and North America. The complex history they relate shows how cable companies exploited or transcended national policies in the creation of the global cable network, how private corporations and government agencies interacted, and how individual reformers fought to eliminate cartels and harmonize the regulation of world communications. In Communication and Empire, the multinational conglomerates, regulations, and the politics of imperialism and anti-imperialism as well as the cries for reform of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth emerge as the obvious forerunners of today’s global media.