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Telecommunications Policy in the European Union: Developing the Information Superhighway
Author(s) -
CURWEN PETER
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
jcms: journal of common market studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.54
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1468-5965
pISSN - 0021-9886
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5965.1995.tb00538.x
Subject(s) - telecommunications , monopoly , competition (biology) , information superhighway , european union , business , telephony , service provider , universal service , telecommunications service , service (business) , cyberspace , international trade , commerce , marketing , economics , market economy , engineering , the internet , computer science , ecology , world wide web , biology
Abstract By the end of this century, the telecommunications market in the European Union will have been transformed from a collection of national monopolies providing little apart from basic voice telephony and Value‐Added Network Services (VANS) into a unified, competitive market for multimedia services ‐ or at least that is the intention behind a series of directives issued by the European Commission. This should open up enormous opportunities for service providers, whatever their origin, and the process of forming the necessary alliances for world‐wide coverage has begun in earnest. A first step, in many cases, is the privatization of the national monopoly provider. New forms of competition such as cable and mobile telephony are springing up with unprecedented speed ‐ so fast, indeed, that the consumer is being left in the wake of the technology.