Telecommunications “Liberalization”

An important step for countries seeking to promote the development of the Internet is to privatize their state telephone monopoly and introduce competition in telephone services, in order to attract investment, spur infrastructure improvements and drive down prices. The process of privatizations requires countries to set up a regulatory authority to address issues like competition, interconnection, and pricing.

Overview

There are lots of documents (free online, but usually in English) that either describe the process as a "case study" or are designed to give guidance to policymakers. Here are some pointers:

• A good place to start is a short paper published by the World Bank: "Telecommunications Reform: How To Succeed" (1997) by Bjorn Wellenius. http://www.worldbank.org/html/fpd/notes/130/130summary.html
  
• World Bank, Telecommunications Regulation Handbook - perhaps the best summary available - in PDF, six modules:
  • Overview of Telecommunications Regulation
  • Licensing Telecommunications Services
  • Interconnection
  • Price Regulation
  • Competition Policy
  • Universal Service http://www.infodev.org/projects/314regulationhandbook/
    

EiPN in the world