IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpio/0407008.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Telecommunications Regulation: An Introduction

Author

Listed:
  • Nicholas Economides

    (Stern School of Business, New York University)

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. We briefly 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 not be realized. 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.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicholas Economides, 2004. "Telecommunications Regulation: An Introduction," Industrial Organization 0407008, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpio:0407008
    Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 45
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/io/papers/0407/0407008.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicholas Economides, 1997. "The Economics of Networks," Brazilian Electronic Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, vol. 1(0), December.
    2. Nicholas Economides & Lawrence J. White, 1995. "Access and Interconnection Pricing: How Efficient is the Efficient Component Pricing Rule?," Working Papers 95-04, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    3. Economides, Nicholas, 1999. "The Telecommunications Act of 1996 and its impact1," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 455-483, December.
    4. Nicholas Economides, 1999. "Real Options and the Costs of the Local Telecommunications Network," Working Papers 99-11, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    5. Weiman, David F & Levin, Richard C, 1994. "Preying for Monopoly? The Case of Southern Bell Telephone Company, 1894-1912," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(1), pages 103-126, February.
    6. Nicholas Economides & Giuseppe Lopomo & Glenn Woroch, 1997. "Regulatory Pricing Policies to Neutralize Network Dominance," Industrial Organization 9612003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Economides, Nicholas, 1998. "The incentive for non-price discrimination by an input monopolist," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 271-284, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ingo Vogelsang, 2004. "Network Utilities in the U.S. - Sector Reforms without Privatization," CESifo Working Paper Series 1142, CESifo.
    2. Gabriel Godofredo Fiuza de Bragança, 2005. "A Remuneração de Redes nas Telecomunicações e a Nova Orientação a Custos: Avaliação e Perspectivas Para a Telefonia Fixa Brasileira," Discussion Papers 1104, Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada - IPEA.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nicholas Economides, 2006. "Competition Policy in Network Industries: An Introduction," Chapters, in: Dennis W. Jansen (ed.), The New Economy and Beyond, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Nicholas Economides, 2004. "US Telecommunications Today, October 2002," Industrial Organization 0407007, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Joan Calzada & Francesc Trillas, 2005. "The interconnection prices in telecomunications: from theory to practice," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 173(2), pages 85-125, June.
    4. Kaserman, David L. & Mayo, John W., 1999. "Regulatory policies toward local exchange companies under emerging competition: guardrails or speed bumps on the information highway?," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 367-388, December.
    5. Economides, Nicholas, 1999. "The Telecommunications Act of 1996 and its impact1," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 455-483, December.
    6. Riechmann, Christoph, 2000. "Strategic pricing of grid access under partial price-caps -- electricity distribution in England and Wales," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 187-207, April.
    7. Hahn, Jong-Hee, 2003. "Nonlinear pricing of telecommunications with call and network externalities," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(7), pages 949-967, September.
    8. Kari Kemppainen, 2004. "Competition and regulation in European retail payment systems," Microeconomics 0404008, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Herguera-García, Iñigo & Aguilar-Barceló, José G., 2004. "El papel de las tarifas de interconexión en las industrias en red [The role of interconnection charges in network industries]," MPRA Paper 4733, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jan 2004.
    10. Pablo T. Spiller & Carlo G. Cardilli, 1997. "The Frontier of Telecommunications Deregulation: Small Countries Leading the Pack," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 127-138, Fall.
    11. Toshihiro Matsumura & Noriaki Matsushima, 2009. "Access Charge, Vertical Separation, and Lobbying," Discussion Papers 2009-11, Kobe University, Graduate School of Business Administration.
    12. Giovannetti, Emanuele, 2002. "Interconnection, differentiation and bottlenecks in the Internet," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 385-404, September.
    13. Gert Brunekreeft, 2002. "Regulation and Third-Party Discrimination in the German Electricity Supply Industry," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 203-220, May.
    14. Ben Dkhil, Inès, 2014. "Competition in the Fixed Telecommunication Market Segment: Challenges and Theories," MPRA Paper 72909, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Armstrong, Mark, 2001. "The theory of access pricing and interconnection," MPRA Paper 15608, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Nicholas Economides, 1999. "U.S. Telecommunications Today, April 1999," Working Papers 99-09, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    17. Michel Fok, 2009. "Restructurer efficacement les filières cotonnières en Afrique : les leçons de la déréglementation des réseaux de service en Occident," Post-Print halshs-00476447, HAL.
    18. Laura Baraldi, 2004. "Esternalita' Di Rete: Una Rassegna," Working Papers 12_2004, D.E.S. (Department of Economic Studies), University of Naples "Parthenope", Italy.
    19. White, Lawrence J., 2000. "US telephone deregulation: lessons to be learned, mistakes to be avoided," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 173-183, May.
    20. Kotakorpi, Kaisa, 2002. "Access Pricing and Competition in Telecommunications," Discussion Papers 283, VATT Institute for Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Words: telecommunications; regulation; competition; monopoly; oligopoly; Internet; broadband; DSL; unbundling; antitrust;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpio:0407008. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.