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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/2451/26123
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| Title: | Telecommunications Regulation: An Introduction |
| Authors: | Economides, Nicholas |
| Keywords: | telecommunications
regulation
competition
monopoly
oligopoly
Internet
broadband
DSL
unbundling |
| Issue Date: | Aug-2004 |
| Series/Report no.: | EC-04-10 |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the justifications, history, and practice of
regulation in the US telecommunications sector. We examine the impact of
technological and regulatory change on market structure and business
strategy. Among others, we discuss the emergence and decline of the
telecom bubble, the impact on pricing of digitization and the emergence
of Internet telephony (VOIP). We also examine the impact of the 1996
Telecommunications Act on market structure and strategy in conjunction
with the history of regulation and antitrust intervention in the
telecommunications sector. After discussing the impact of wireless
technologies, we conclude by venturing into some short term predictions.
We express concern about the derailment of the implementation of the
1996 Act by the aggressive legal tactics of the entrenched monopolists
(the local exchange carriers), and we point to the real danger that the
intent of Congress in passing the 1996 Act to promote competition in
telecommunications will never be realized in local telecommunications in
the fashion that the 1996 prescribed. The decision of AT&T to stop
marketing both long distance and local services to residential customers
is a direct result of the derailing of the 1996 Act that has allowed the
local service monopolists (i) to enter long distance while the local
market was still monopolized; and (ii) to leverage their monopoly power
in the local market to the long distance market. We also discuss the
wave of mergers in the Telecommunications and cable industries, the
telecom meltdown of 2000-2003, and issues that arose from the triennial
review by the FCC of implementation of the 1996 Act. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2451/26123 |
| Appears in Collections: | Economics Working Papers
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