Milton Mueller

Universal service in telephone history: A reconstruction

The universality of telephone service is generally believed to be an achievement of regulated monopoly and rate subsidies. This paper critically examines the historical claims of what it terms the ideology of universal service. It shows that a ubiquitous telephone infrastructure developed in the USA because of competition between Bell and the independents in the period 1894-1921. Moreover, it shows that it was the refusal of Bell and the independents to interconnect with each other, a phenomenon which is generally ignored or condemned in the historical and economic literature, which propelled both systems into a race to achieve universality, leading to rapid increases in penetration and geographic scope, particularly in rural areas. The phrase universal service, which first emerged in telephone policy debates in 1907, did not mean a telephone in every home or rate subsidies, but the interconnection of the systems into a unified, non-fragmented service.

Digital Convergence and its Consequences

AbstractThe concept of convergence has been bandied about for at least 25 years. Initially, concepts of convergence conflated technological integration of print, telecommunications and broadcasting systems with firm-level integration of publishers, telephone companies, cable TV operators, and broadcasters. Ithiel de Sola Pool’s (1983) concept of a single integrated common carrier that met all media needs exemplified the prevailing vision. This paper conducts a broad historical survey of the market structure of media and telecommunications industries from the analogue era of the 1940s to the late-1990s. Its chief premise is that convergence is driven by the declining cost of information processing power, and by the development of open standards. The chief effect of this upon market structure is not to encourage consolidation and vertical integration but rather to break up the media market into more or less specialised horizontal components (content, conveyance, packaging of services, software, and terminal...

Civil Society and the Shaping of Communication-Information Policy: Four Decades of Advocacy

This article initiates exploratory empirical research on how civil society collective action has reacted to and affected communication–information policy (CIP), a policy domain that has been reshaped by technological and industrial change. It reviews the relevant theory on social movements, citizens groups, and interest groups from political science. Data are gathered on two dimensions of the research question: (1) We quantify the number of public interest advocacy groups focused on CIP in the United States from 1961 to the present, using organizational ecology methods. (2) We track the number of U.S. Congressional hearings held each year on CIP issues. The results show that CIP now exceeds other social movement issues (women, civil rights, the environment, human rights) as a major concern of Congressional activity, that the issues are becoming more interdependent, and that modes of citizens advocacy have undergone drastic changes in recent years.

Icann and Internet Governance: Sorting Through the Debris of 'Self-Regulation'

Discusses ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which is a new private corporation for managing Internet domain names and IP addresses, which was created in the USA and produces a historical and conceptual assessment of the policy involved.

Where is the governance in Internet governance

The governance of the Internet provides one of the most important arenas in which new ideas regarding Internet studies can be applied and tested. This paper critiques the prevailing conceptualization of Internet governance. The label is routinely applied to the study of a few formal global institutions with limited or no impact on governance, but not to studies of the many activities that actually shape and regulate the use and evolution of the Internet, such as Internet service provider interconnection, security incident response or content filtering. Consequently, current conceptualizations of Internet governance inflate the presence and influence of state actors. Furthermore, they undermine efforts to understand how large-scale distributed systems in the global economy can be governed in the absence of formalized international regimes. We conclude by discussing how concepts of networked governance can be applied and extended to illuminate the study of Internet governance.

The WTO and China's ban on foreign investment in telecommunication services: a game-theoretic analysis

Chinas telecommunication services sector was closed to foreign direct investment (FDI) during the 1990s. The official ban on FDI persisted despite Chinas enormous demand for capital to build out its telecommunication infrastructure. It remained in place despite statements from Western analysts that it was not sustainable and repeated predictions that it was about to be relaxed. What created the ban, why did it stay in place so long, and why did China suddenly offer, in its World Trade Organization accession agreement with the United States, to change it significantly? This paper identifies the domestic policy bargains that supported the FDI restriction. A simple game theory model is used to analyze the way four players -- (1) the Chinese state, (2) the Ministry of Information Industry/China Telecom, (3) Telecoms domestic rivals, and (4) foreign strategic investors -- interacted over access to foreign capital and technology. We contend that this analytical framework provides a much more solid understanding of the forces shaping Chinese telecommunications policy than simplistic extrapolations of Western notions of liberalization and privatization. The model is then used to assess whether Chinas willingness to open up to foreign strategic investment in the sector was driven primarily by its own domestic reform process, or by the external pressures generated by its desire to join the WTO. Our model predicts that China would not have opened up to foreign investment in telecommunication services without the need to bargain for WTO accession. It is our conclusion that the states desire for WTO accession tipped the games equilibrium sufficiently to alter the FDI ban.

New Zealand's revolution in spectrum management

In 1989 New Zealand’s Fourth Labour Government passed a new radiocommunications law which radically overhauled its management of the electromagnetic spectrum.’ The aim of the law was to create an open market for spectrum so that radio frequencies could be bought and sold like any other factor of production. The law authorized the government to define long-term, tradeable property rights to radio channels, and to auction off these rights to the highest bidder. This radical experiment in resource privatization is of great significance to contemporary telecommunications policy debates. Wireless applications of computer and telecommunications technologies are growing in number and importance. The apparently limitless potential of radio technology, however, brings with it intensifying competition for space on the spectrum. Among government regulators who must ration this increasingly valuable electronic real estate, there is growing interest in the use of market

The battle over Internet domain names: Global or national TLDs?

The paper examines the global controversy over Internet domain names, specifically the choice between top-level domain (TLD) names based on country codes and top-level domain names based on generic terms. The paper describes the historical background of the existing TLD naming scheme and the breakdown in the principles and procedures used to ration domain names. It develops a critique of national TLD names and an argument for expanding the number of global TLDs. Global TLDs are more useful semantically, permit more room for price competition and service innovation, and are more suited to non-territorial basis of Internet communication. More generally, they foster a regime of free international trade in Internet-related services.

China's new Internet regulations: two steps forward, one step back

China’s recent double-digit economic growth has impressed the world, but its telecommunications sector has been growing faster than the economy as a whole, expanding at an annual rate of 30%–50% since 1989 [10]. Each year, about 10 million phone lines are added to the public network. There are 6 to 7 million mobile phone users. China has further attempted to develop and adopt cutting-edge information technology. It has launched its own “National Information Infrastructure” projects, generically known as the “Golden Projects,” in response to NII initiatives in the advanced economies of the U.S., Japan, and Europe. At the forefront of China’s NII initiatives is its desire to build its own ubiquitous Internet. However, mixed signals are emerging. In the midst of its ambitious expansion, China’s government is trying to impose stricter controls on content and access. In January 1996, China’s top civil authority, the State Council, announced regulations to consolidate the administration of all computer networkbuilding activities and international interconnections

Digital identity: How users value the attributes of online identifiers

Abstract This paper examines online identifiers from an economic perspective. It uses conjoint analysis survey techniques to develop empirical data on how users value the attributes of online identifiers. It is concerned in particular with three issues: (1) the degree to which identified subjects value increasing the scope of an identifier, i.e., the ability to use a single identifier to access services offered by several organizations; (2) the degree to which users’ choice may be constrained by switching costs; and (3) the value individuals place on privacy and data security relative to other attributes such as cost or scope. The survey population was located in South Korea. The results indicate that e-mail addresses dominate the world of online identifiers for ordinary consumers; that consumers highly value increased scope (e.g., single sign-on capabilities) and the security of their private data; and that switching costs are high.