Sequencing in telecommunications reform: A review of the Turkish case

This paper reviews the Turkish case of telecommunications reform with reference to the evidence from the sequencing literature. Turkey’s progress is in line with the proper sequencing of reform suggested by the literature. Accordingly, Turkey has pursued a gradualist approach by restructuring its public utility, the Posts, Telegraph and Telephone Company, and creating Turk Telecom in 1994; establishing the sector regulator, the Turkish Telecommunications Authority, in 2000; and liberalising the sector in 2003 before selling 55% of Turk Telecom to Oger Telecom, a private company, in 2005. Although the proper sequencing of reform was implemented, the Turkish telecommunications sector has not been functioning satisfactorily as yet, as indicated in the recent progress report of the European Union about Turkey’s accession and as revealed by the performance indicators analysed in this paper. The prevailing information, incentive and commitment problems require a close cooperation by the government with the regulators so as to ensure and reinforce the autonomy of the Telecommunications Authority and to establish a more transparent decision-making process.     

Reform of telecommunications regulation in Japan and Canada

Despite demographic and political differences, Japan and Canada face many similar challenges in the development of new telecommunications policy. These include interbureaucratic conflict, reorganization initiatives by the telcos and policy development by non-elected officials. Differences include the nature of policy change, the role of economic considerations and decision-making processes. This comparative analysis concludes by suggesting that each country may learn useful lessons with respect to public involvement, local rates, local measured service and the process of regulatory change.     

The future role of international telecommunications institutions

The telecommunications world is being swept by technological and national regulatory changes. The international telecommunication institutions — the ITU, INTELSAT and CEPT — were founded in times when technological trends were more stable and national regulation was more homogeneous. How will they cope with these new changes? In an era of growing heterogeneity, the ITU may need to look increasingly beynd itself to maintain its centrality. Meanwhile, INTELSAT faces challenges from new market entrants and a more flexible approach to new technological and commercial imperatives in satellite and cable services. The EEC is awakening to the need for institutional change within Europe and this is already having an impact on CEPT. It is concluded that to survive and to maintain relevance the existing international institutions will need to initiate changes or face a loss of authority to other institutions such as OECD and EEC.     

The influence of regulations on the efficiency of telecommunications operators: A meta-frontier analysis

The telecommunications industry has a great ripple effect on the overall national economy. However, there is no consensus about what is the optimal regulation policy for the telecommunications industry. Regulations on the telecommunications industry are different by region (i.e. United States, European Union and Asia). A number of studies have been conducted on comparative efficiency analysis for different policies that apply stochastic frontier analysis or data envelope analysis. However, these comparative studies are inappropriate because the production functions for each region are not identical. Thus, this paper addresses meta-frontier methodology, which can reflect differences in production functions. The results indicate that the United States has the highest meta-frontier efficiency in contrast to previous research findings.     

The impact of trade liberalization in telecommunications services: The case of APEC countries

This paper examines the impact of liberalizing the telecommunications services sector on investment and output in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries by estimating a system of four structural equations that takes into account the causal relationship between national income and telecommunications infrastructure. The degree of openness to trade in telecommunications is represented by a carefully constructed index that reflects a country’s trade and investment policy in terms of market access, national treatment and regulatory principles. One interesting finding from the empirical analysis is that the effects of trade liberalization depend on the risk rating of a country. In countries with relatively high risk ratings liberalization reduces investment in telecommunications.     

Moving beyond dichotomy: Comparing composite telecommunications regulatory governance indices

Despite an apparent consensus about the importance of the quality of telecommunications regulatory agencies, there is no agreement among researchers about how to measure it. While dichotomous coding of de jure independence has served as a proxy to measure whether an agency's regulatory governance is transparent, non-arbitrary, and free from political influence, we view measuring multiple components of regulatory governance including incorporating measures of regulatory independence into a composite index as providing a more nuanced understanding of facilitating or inhibiting factors. This paper compares composite telecommunications regulatory independence indices and regulatory governance indices available in the literature in order to construct more parsimonious indices. Using a methodology labeled “qualitative meta-synthesis” based on synthesizing previously published indices, we construct six different indices using combinations of 32 different variables, and different weights. Data from the OECD database are used to re-create the five original indices from the literature as well as our own six composites. Some of these indices (original and composites) were found to be negatively correlated with independent measures of regulatory governance such as the World Bank's Government Effectiveness Index and the Rule of Law Index; this may be attributable to the fact that countries, and especially those with poor overall governance standards, may need to put in place stronger telecommunications governance institutions in order to attract telecommunications investment to the country. The analysis suggests that a parsimonious index of as few as seven variables is capable of measuring the quality of telecommunications governance in a country, at the same time making the selection of variables and their weighting in the index more systematic than in previously available indices.     

Economy size and performance: An efficiency analysis in the telecommunications sector

The existing empirical evidence on the relationship between economy size and performance has been inconclusive. This paper employs stochastic frontier analysis to estimate economic measures of efficiency for the telecommunications sectors of 139 economies and examine their relationship with economy size. Simultaneously, it controls for the effects of competition in telecommunications, privatization of state-owned providers, independent regulators, and the quality of political institutions on sector performance. The findings suggest that economy size has a positive but decreasing impact on sector performance. Small economies have an incentive to grow to improve sector performance, though larger size is not a sufficient condition for efficiency. Sector policy and the quality of polity may contribute significantly to sector performance.     

Regulation to deregulation: the telecommunications sector and industrialization : Evidence from the Pacific rim and basin

Evidence from the Pacific and elsewhere suggests that countries deregulate their telecommunications sectors as economic development proceeds. Theoretical considerations support this, since arguments for (against) deregulation are mostly applicable to industrialized (developing) countries. Several such arguments are surveyed. Actual instances of telecommunications deregulation in Pacific countries are also cited to confirm this hypothesis. The scarcity and simplicity of telecommunications in early development stages favour cooperative, regulated solutions; as technological progress makes services more abundant and varied, competitive, deregulated approaches become more attractive.     

Telecommunications in Canada: The regulatory crisis

The article highlights the need for a national dimension in Canada's telecommunications systems. But the national dimension is undermined by the country's haphazard regulatory structure, and the consequent barriers to fair and equitable access to telecommunications services. A solution is proposed in the form of a national regulatory body which, without constitutional rearrangement, would yield effective federal authority and simultaneously ensure that valid concerns of a local or intraprovincial nature are taken into account.     

Competition in telecommunications

The author examines the impact of competition from both domestic and international perspectives. He provides a critique of the pro-competition argument, although a number of advantages of competition are also outlined. The advantages are discussed in relation to equipment and services. International trends towards competition are then described and the disadvantages of such trends are debated in relation to cross-subsidization, interconnection, the telecommunications manufacturing industry, and the market structure. Finally, competition in the international arena is discussed.     

Cyprus: A new centre for telecommunications

A rapid expansion of telecommunications facilities on Cyprus in recent years is bringing the island to the fore as a focus for communications in the Middle East region. Its strategic position in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, a communications infrastructure well in advance of that offered by most of the surrounding countries, and fully developed ties with European and Arab countries, are accelerating this already pronounced trend.     

Economic growth,telecommunications development and productivity growth of the telecommunications sector: Evidence around the world

This paper studies the relationships between economic growth, telecommunications development and productivity growth of the telecommunications sector in different countries and regions of the world. In particular, this study assesses the impact of mobile telecommunications on economic growth and telecommunications productivity. The results indicate that there is a bidirectional relationship between real gross domestic product (GDP) and telecommunications development (as measured by teledensity) for European and high-income countries. However, when the impact of mobile telecommunications development on economic growth is measured separately, the bi-directional relationship is no longer restricted to European and high-income countries. This study also finds that countries in the upper-middle income group have achieved a higher average total factor productivity (TFP) growth than other countries. Countries with competition and privatization in telecommunications have achieved a higher TFP growth than those without competition and privatization. The diffusion of mobile telecommunications services is found to be a significant factor that has improved the TFP growth of the telecommunications sector in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).     

Comparing the operational efficiency of the main European telecommunications organizations: A quantitative analysis

There are today many operators competing within the European telecommunications market. For these operators, efficiency should be considered as a key element for achieving greater revenue and enhancing market position. In this paper, comparison is made of the main European public telecommunications organizations (PTOs) in terms of their operational efficiency using data envelopment analysis, a well-known quantitative technique from operational research. The analysis is based on data provided in the edition (Communications Outlook, 1999, OECD Publication Service, Paris). The main conclusion is that full operational efficiency can equally be achieved by PTOs with large revenues as well as by others with medium and smaller revenues. Also notable is the presence of certain PTOs with full efficiency ratings which are considered here as models or benchmarks for the less efficient organizations. Finally, some implications of the findings for telecommunications management are examined at the end of this paper.     

Competition and performance in the UK telecommunications industry

Judging by historical and crossnational experience, privatization of British Telecom promises to increase the rate of expansion of telecommunications usage, but also to redistribute services and charges. Public dissatisfaction with these reallocations could recreate the political discord that stunted the early growth of the British telecommunications manufacturing sector, unless the new technology and regulatory institutions substantially alter the economic environment. More intense competition. rather than prospective changes of network ownership, seem to have improved the seem to have improved the manufacturing industry's performance in recent years.     

On the role of telecommunications in development

Numerous studies document the relationship between telecommunications and economic development. The main types and relative merits of these are summarized. The paper argues that more of the same will do little to help promote accelerated telecommunications investment in developing countries as needed. Rather, the efforts should now mainly concentrate on conveying existing sector knowledge to governments and international agencies. The paper focuses on examples of simple, proven tools which can be used to supplement telecommunications project analysis for this purpose.     

The evolution of telecommunications policy-making: Comparative analysis of China and India

This paper is a comparative analysis of the telecommunications policy-making process in China and India. Adopting an institutionalist perspective and multi-streams framework, the paper analyzes the formal structures, rule-making procedures and interest groups involved in telecommunications policy-making in the two countries, in terms of their evolution over the last two decades. Though the two systems began this period with a somewhat similar ministerial-bureaucratic decision-making model, and faced similar problems of assimilating new interest groups and responding to international pressures, the paper finds that the decision systems in the two countries evolved in significantly different directions. China's telecommunications decision-making is significantly affected by the macro level political rearrangement and is more likely to be non-incremental. On the other hand, confronted by an increasingly litigious environment and a more fractious interest group culture, India represents a somewhat classical textbook case of incremental policy making. Nevertheless, numerous challenges remain in both countries, including institutional capacity and excessive regulatory deference to political authority.     

Global competition and EEC policy in telecommunications: An Italian perspective

Within the framework of increasing US and Japanese competition, an interpretation is given of the future development lines of European telecommunications. Europe is lagging behind in this sector; this is explained in terms of the subdivision of services at the national level and the fragmentation of industrial areas within the respective countries. The minimum basis for recovery should be the establishment of a common European base in the telecommunications sector. A European scenario is proposed with particular attention devoted to the Italian problems in restructuring and development.     

National telecommunications planning in Brazil

During the past 15 years Brazil has undergone a process of rapid modernization in its telecommunications. Starting from a chaotic situation, institutional foundations were established and an ambitious development programme carried out. A fundamental piece of this programme was a planning process that proved to be flexible and adequate to handle the social and economic disparities of the country. The policies that have emerged from the planning process were implemented and provided good economic results and satisfaction to customers.     

Regional structure and telecommunications planning

The general role of telecommunications in economic development has been recognized, but there remain some important specific issues in matching telecommunications planning to development goals. The author suggests a new approach, based on models relating regional structure to telecommunications demand. Data, which are readily available, on populations in places and rural areas within a region are used to derive a regional structure composed of places and the links between them. These links are found to be very closely related to telecommunications demand. This article suggests that telecommunications and development planners in the Third World should pay particular attention to ensuring that all the links between places in a region are served, and that the models presented here could form the basis for suitable planning criteria.     

Japan's policy on monopoly and competition in telecommunications

Telecommunications policy in Japan is about to undergo a significant change in the field of domestic telecommunications services. A monopolistic policy has long been maintained - monopoly by the government for the first 80 years and monopoly by the NTT, a domestic common carrier, for the past 30 years. Now, however, a policy of competition is required to meet the needs of citizens and companies when confronted with the age of the information society. This article analyses the trend of past, present and future telecommunications policy in Japan in relation to monopoly and competition.