Niall Levine

Touching stones to cross the river: Evolving telecommunication policy priorities in contemporary China

This article, drawing on fieldwork in China, charts the ascendancy of Lian Tong (China Unicom), the first competitor to the incumbent Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. Commencing with an historical overview of Chinese telecommunications, it suggests that Lian Tongs formation has been contingent upon support from key constituencies within Chinas political elite. The companys emergence mirrors technological trends and user pressure evident globally. It embodies the drive towards market liberalisation now evident within the Peoples’ Republic. While the Chinese policy community is sensible of the need to make haste slowly toward the goal of telecommunications competition — ‘touching stones to cross the river’ in the contemporary aphorism — the success of this ‘policy experiment’ depends both on the subtleties of Chinese politics and the construction of bold new regulatory frameworks. Lian Tongs genesis is symbolic of developments in the telecommunications sector, and maybe also more generally in t...

Competition in wireless: spectrum, service and technology wars

It is by now well understood that wireless is becoming the dominant mode for voice telecommunications worldwide. According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the number of mobile phones was to exceed the number of fixed line phones by 2003 (ITU, 2000). This pattern first emerged in Cambodia in 1993 and by the year 2000 it was also true for thirteen developed countries and twenty-two developing countries. (ITU, 2002) It appears that even in the United States (US) – long the holdout developed country for significant mobile telephone growth because of its high fixed line penetration – the conventional wisdom is that the number of fixed line phones is declining as customers drop their fixed line service for mobile service.

Albanian telecommunication reform: The road less travelled

Albania has an average of only 1.4 telephone lines per 100 people. Yet telecommunications public policy reform is now increasingly viewed by the Albanian policy community as central to the countrys future economic and political ambitions. This paper aims to explain how this precarious state of affairs arose in Albania, and, using comparisons with some of its former allies (China, Russia and other Central and Eastern Europe countries), suggest what possible measures of telecommunication policy reform are now necessary to take account of the countrys unique cultural, economic and geographical conditions.

NUMBER PORTABILITY, REGULATION AND THE LEVEL PLAYING FIELD: AN EMERGENT POLICY HETERODOXY?

Number portability has rapidly ascended the regulatory agenda of contemporary telecommunications public policy. As a techno-regulatory device for facilitating competition, number portability is in good currency. The experiences of the United States, Britain and Europe suggest, however, that the implementation of portability remains essentially contestable. The analysis reveals the continuing presence of stakeholder interests in this instalment of the telecommunications de-regulatory game.