Ten years ago, the United States stood at the forefront of the Internet revolution. With some of the fastest speeds and lowest prices in the world for high-speed Internet access, the nation was poised to be the global leader in the new knowledge-based economy. Today that global competitive advantage has all but vanished because of a series of government decisions and resulting monopolies that have allowed dozens of countries, including Japan and South Korea, to pass us in both speed and price of broadband. This steady slide backward not only deprives consumers of vital services needed in a competitive employment and business market—it also threatens the economic future of the nation. This important book by leading telecommunications policy expert Susan Crawford explores why Americans are now paying much more but getting much less when it comes to high-speed Internet access. Using the 2011 merger between Comcast and NBC Universal as a lens, Crawford examines how we have created the biggest monopoly since the breakup of Standard Oil a century ago. In the clearest terms, this book explores how telecommunications monopolies have affected the daily lives of consumers and America's global economic standing.

This book provides a clear and thorough account of the process leading up to the revision of the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) one of the four treaties administered by the ITU. The author’s inside view of the events and his legal analysis of the new ITRs, are different from that what has been aired in most other accounts to date. His systematic approach shows how much of the criticism of the WCIT-12 process and of the ITRs themselves, is unjustified. This book provides the most accurate view to date of what the ITRs really mean and of what really happened at WCIT-12, which was undoubtedly a key event in the history of telecommunication policy and which is likely to have significant long-term effects. The book covers in some detail the events leading to the non-signature of the treaty by a significant number of states, outlines possible consequences of that split between states, and offers possible ways forward. The book includes a detailed article-by-article analysis of the new ITRs, explaining their implications and concludes with recommendations for national authorities. It concludes with an analysis of events from the point of view of dispute resolution theory, offering suggestions for how to avoid divisive outcomes in the future. "This is an excellent book, and quite rich and comprehensive. The topic is important and the book will surely be of interest to regulators, diplomats, policy experts, and all those who participated in WCIT. The author is uniquely qualified to write an analysis of the new ITRs and an account of the Conference. This book will be a good reference for the next Plenipotentiary Conference to be held in 2014 which is going to discuss follow-up to WCIT-12." Naser al-Rashedi, United Arab Emirates. "This is an authoritative expert account of a moment of high significance for vital issues with respect to international networks." Professor Dan Schiller, University of Illinois. "This is an excellent and timely work." Professor Ian Walden, Queen Mary, University of London. "Interested persons, businesses and governments can draw their policies from the assessments of a telecommunications insider as presented in this book. The manifold arguments enlightening the interpretation of the provisions of the ITRs might become an invaluable guidance for those who apply the ITRs in the future." Professor Dr. Rolf H. Weber, University of Zurich.

Lloyd and Mellor: Telecommunications Law is an important new text which covers all areas of telecommunications law in the UK. But since no examination of telecommunications can, in this new economy, look within a single country's borders, this key work offers a detailed account of the EU's telecommunications policy which increasingly shapes national laws and policies.

The extreme transformation from a traditional Communication Service Provider (CSP) to a Digital Service Provider (DSP) status is covered in this book, specifically: Redefinition of the offerings of "connectivity services" to "digital services"; unification of legacy redundant networks into one; Redefinition of the measurements to customer-centric QoE for all digital and connectivity services; the Best-in-Industry processes and practices to ensure a sustainable network performance at a competitively operational efficiency; a Service-over-IP (SoIP) platform to enable the introduction of unified new services with a time-to-market urgency; the regulatory arrangement for content purification, to liberalize CSPs to become DSPs; an architecture for data mining and analytics; and a migration plan from a CSP to a DSP status. The book is recommended for telecom and digital service professionals planning to embark on transformational projects; telecom and technology equipment manufacturers to help with product development for a DSP status; institutional investors to evaluate and establish their investment decisions; telecom management consultants to help with a solid benchmark for transformation engagement; university students, majoring in telecommunication and technology products as a guide for career planning.

Contains definitions for more than 4,600 telecommunications terms and acronyms arranged from A to Z, and includes separate sections for symbols and numbers.

The issue of costing and pricing in the telecommunications industry has been hotly debated for the last twenty years and we are still wrestling over the cost of the local exchange for access by interexchange and competitive local exchange carriers, as well as for universal service funding. With the advent of competition, the historical costing schemes had to change. Federal regulators wanted to ensure that monopoly rates did not subsidize competitive offerings. As a result, various costing methodologies were devised to allocate costs among the dominant carriers' services. The issue of costs can be summarized as two-fold: the quantitative determination of the level of costs and the proper attribution of those costs. Both are fraught with questions. The amount of costs, for instance, can vary from book costs to marginal costs. The attribution of costs can vary from those that are directly attributable to those that are joint and common. Hence, the need for costing theories and models. The industry is constantly in search of theories and models that more accurately reflect the underlying costs of service. It is in this light that the papers have been compiled for The New Investment Theory of Real Options in Telecommunications. Real options theory attempts to consider management's flexibility in valuation analysis and corrects the deficiencies of the traditional discounted present-value and decision tree analyses. This book sets forth an introduction and overview of the subject, and then provides the reader with a primer on real options. The volume highlights the controversies that surround the application of real options in the telecommunications industry; however, the editors have effectively separated the issues of application from those of interpretation.