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 analyses telecommunications markets from early to mature competition, filling the gap between the existing economic literature on competition and the real-life application of theory to policy. Paul De Bijl and Martin Peitz focus on both the transitory and the persistent asymmetries between telephone companies, investigating the extent to which access price and retail price regulation stimulate both short- and long-term competition. They explore and compare various settings, such as non-linear versus linear pricing, facilities-based versus unbundling-based or carrier-select-based competition, non-segmented versus segmented markets. On the basis of their analysis, De Bijl and Peitz then formulate guidelines for policy. This book is a valuable resource for academics, regulators and telecommunications professionals. It is accompanied by simulation programs devised by the authors both to establish and to illustrate their results.

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.

Telecommunication markets are characterized by a dynamic development of technology and market structures. The specific features of network-based markets, convergence of previously separate spheres and the complex task of market regulation put traditional theoretical approaches as well as current regulatory policies to the test. This book sheds light on some of the challenges ahead. It covers a vast range of subjects from the intricacies of market regulation to new markets for mobile and internet-related services. The diffusion of broadband technology and the emergence of new business strategies that respond to the technological and regulatory challenges are treated in the book’s 24 chapters.

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.