Mark Naftel – The Telecoms Trade War

About The Telecoms Trade War

If one were to believe the politicians and pundits in the trade press,the world is in midst of a “telecoms revolution,” resulting from (the) deregulation and new competitive opportunities represented by the 1997 World Trade Organisation Agreement on Basic Telecommunications Services. This may be true. Unfortunately, however, the actions of many regulators and industry participants more accurately reveal not a telecoms “revolution” but instead a growing telecoms trade war that is dangerously close to spiralling out of hand. In this book, Naftel and Spiwak review U.S. and European competition and regulatory initiatives post-WTO and provide both a useful roadmap to today’s U.S., EU and WTO telecoms regulation and an examination of various case studies to illustrate their points. In so doing, the authors discover unfortunately the sad reality that, despite the political rhetoric, regulators on both sides of the Atlantic have eschewed innovative and indeed productive solutions to create a market structure conducive to long-term competitive rivalry. Instead, the authors demonstrate that current policies reveal a growing cynicism towards the maximisation of consumer welfare that will be difficult – if not outright impossible- to remove.

Table Of Contents

PART I: ANALYTICAL AND LEGAL FRAMEWORK

1: Telecoms Policy for the New Millennium

2: Why Restructure?

3: Analytical Framework

4: Evaluating Competition in a Post-WTO World

5: The WTO and the Reference Paper: An Ostensible Blueprint for Entry

PART II: US EFFORTS TO PROMOTE TELECOMS COMPETITION

6: From International Competitive Carrier Paradigm to Effective Competitive Opportunities: The FCC’s

International Policies Pre-WTO

7: US Policies Post-WTO Part I-Benchmarks and Entry Fees

8: US Policies Post-WTO Part 2-The Naked Politicisation of the American Legal System

9: “Do As I Say, Not As I Do”-US Efforts at Promoting Local Telecoms Competition