Covers: technological trends and issues; the European market for telecom services; European activities and strategies of U.S. telecom firms; users' perspectives--views of U.S. services exporters; telecom in Central and Eastern Europe; domestic regulation and international trade negotiations; how telecom policy is made; international investment and domestic infrastructure, and more. Graphs, diagrams and drawings.

This book provides a critical comprehensive summary of the coevolution of telecom markets, rules and public institutions over the last 25 years, focusing on the challenges that regulators and policy makers have been facing. Even if the perspective of the book is European (as the EU regulatory framework is examined), most of the economic and institutional issues addressed are common to all telecom markets in advanced economies. The book addresses some traditional fundamental topics in the telecom regulation literature, as well as some hot-button topics in the current policy debate, e.g., ultrafast broadband and 5G networks, the relationship between investments and competition, the sector digitalisation and the role of OTTs. All these are relevant to students, researchers, and policy makers interested to get a sound understanding of the sector, its many dimensions and coevolutionary patterns.

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.

Providing a comprehensive overview of the current European regulatory framework on telecommunications, this book analyses the 2016 proposal for a European Electronic Communications Code (EECC). The work takes as its basis the 2009 Regulatory Framework on electronic communications and analyses each of its five main directives, comparing them with the changes proposed in the EECC. Key chapters focus on issues surrounding choosing the right regulatory model in order to secure effective investment in next-generation networks and ensure their successful deployment.

The authors analyze regulatory reform and the emergence of competitionin network industries using the state-of-the-art theoretical tools ofindustrial organization, political economy, and the economics ofincentives.