TABLE OF CONTENTS Regulation of the telecommunications services industry is taking place in many countries of all stages of economic development. This follows from governments' policies from the 1980s to create competitive markets in this industry, where before there had been monopoly supply. Often, the national government owned the monopolist, which was in some cases part of the civil service, that is, of the government itself. Regulation forms one aspect of a restructuring process that has the three components shown in Figure 1.1: competition, privatisation and regulation. Any one of these could be implemented without the others, though obviously they must inter-relate when applied together. The motivation for this restructuring is a belief by governments that competition and private ownership will increase and continue to increase the power of the industry to satisfy growing customer demands with greater economic efficiency. The long-run effectiveness of all this remains to be confirmed by experience, through both boom times and lean times. Although rapid technological development has played a major role in reducing prices in this industry, there can be no doubt that additional strong and downward price trends have been observed over the last two decades in liberalising countries. There is, therefore, positive evidence for believing that competitive restructuring will prove a lasting success. Competition and privatisation are therefore here to stay, and a degree of regulation will be a necessity for some time to come.
Market liberalisation is the...
