Continentalizing Canadian Telecommunications

Continentalizing Canadian Telecommunications PDF

Author: Vanda Rideout

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 9780773524521

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InContinentalizing Canadian TelecommunicationsVanda Rideout examines active political resistance to the radical, neo-liberal transformation of Canadian telecommunications that has been orchestrated by the federal government, big business, and their powerful lobbyists over the last two decades. Rideout focuses on the protection of the public interest, a crucial element neglected by most recent studies, and shows that although alliances have been formed between labour, consumers, and public interest activists, significant disagreements over issues such as free trade, long distance and local competition, and a targeted subsidy program for very low-income Canadians have meant that this united front has not been able to counter the forces of the new neo-liberal telecommunication policy regime.Continentalizing Canadian Telecommunicationsdetails the complex relationships between the various corporate and government interests, shows how the changes they brought about have locked Canada's telecommunications system into the orbit of the US system, and discusses the implications this has for Canadians.

Perspectives on the New Economics and Regulation of Telecommunications

Perspectives on the New Economics and Regulation of Telecommunications PDF

Author: Institute for Research on Public Policy

Publisher: IRPP

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 9780886451745

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This volume is a compilation of papers reflecting many of the issues related to telecommunications that are being debated today and are likely to continue to be addressed in the next few years. The papers examine the ways in which economic and technological forces are changing the regulation of telecommunications and the characteristics of the industry itself. After an introduction on issues such as the information highway, industry consolidation, market integration, and constraints on new policies, the papers cover such topics as the changes in Canadian telecommunications and their economics, the role of telecommunications in productivity and competition, the business network concept as an alternative governance structure, competition policy, convergence of technologies, separation of infrastructure from services, European telecommunications policy, and the historical context in which Canada has handled earlier transformations of a technological nature.

Talk is Cheap

Talk is Cheap PDF

Author: Robert W. Crandall

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2010-12-01

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 0815719701

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The rapid pace of technological change is placing the world's telephone companies in a very difficult position. Fiber optics cables, wireless telephones, digital signal compression, and sophisticated new switching equipment are lowering the cost of providing service and opening the gates to new competition. At the same time, these new technologies are providing the telephone companies with a wide array of new market opportunities. Unfortunately, their status as regulated carriers makes it difficult to exploit these new opportunities and to fend off competitive assaults on their traditional telephone business. As long as they are regulated, they can be accused of using their monopoly services to cross-subsidize new competitive ventures. But partial deregulation and open entry would be a catastrophe for them unless they were allowed to revise their rate structure. There is a widespread misconception that the U.S. telecommunications industry has been "deregulated" and that Canadian authorities are following the U.S. lead. In fact, most services remain regulated, even though some markets, such as long-distance services, equipment sales and rentals, and local services, have been opened up. This book reviews the recent changes in the structure of U.S. and Canadian telecommunications industries and the changes in regulatory policy on both sides of the border. The authors analyze the effects of these changes in regulation on telephone rates in both the local and long-distance markets with particular emphasis on the impacts of regulatory reforms and competition on long-distance rates. They use their results to suggest how regulation should be structured to allow competition to replace monopoly on the road to the information superhighway. The authors contend that for decades misguided regulation of the telephone sector in both Canada and the U.S. denied consumers the benefits of competition, distorted local and long-distance telephone rates, and blocked en