Universal Service: Competition, Interconnection and Monopoly in the Making of the American Telephone System

Mueller, Milton

doi:10.14305/01-00.bk.2013.1

Cited by 29 publications

(33 citation statements)

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“…Regardless of the chosen methods of achieving universal service objectives, we have a case where market mechanisms are suppressed; and the problem is not only that some individuals are forced to pay for others, but that reliance on cross‐subsidies leads the market away from a potentially competitive place (Spulber and Yoo ). Mueller (, p. 172), for example, points out ‘an unresolved contradiction between the policy goal of promoting competition and the methods of universal service support’. Meanwhile, not only has the universal service dogma survived during the technological change in the industry in recent decades, which had the potential to turn the former monopolistic marketplace into a competitive one, but the concept has been reinforced by a new vision of the need for information resources to be accessible and affordable by the wider society.…”

Section: Separation Of Services and Cross‐subsidisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Is Universal Service Justified by the Public Interest? From the Early Days to the Digital Age

Trubnikov

Трубникова

2018

Economic Affairs

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It is commonly accepted that universal service is clearly justified by reference to the public interest, and this understanding stems from the natural monopoly paradigm. However, telecommunications monopolies have never been ‘natural’, and the alternative to regulation has always been a competitive marketplace. The liberalisation movement had a chance to create a genuinely competitive industry but failed to do so. This article argues that the universal service dogma has played a significant role in the formation of the ordered competition regime of modern telecommunications, and explains this phenomenon in terms of public choice theory.

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Section: Separation Of Services and Cross‐subsidisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mueller argues that by the mid‐1920s the household penetration in the US was about 30% (Mueller , p. 145), while, for example, in West Germany the similar figures had been achieved only by the beginning of the 1970s (Noam , pp. 77–8).…”

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confidence: 99%

Is Universal Service Justified by the Public Interest? From the Early Days to the Digital Age

Trubnikov

Трубникова

2018

Economic Affairs

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“…They enhanced competition for the long-distance services that subsidized local services and they prevented competition for the latter. For a long time universal service policies were in the interest of (the old) AT&T and the recipients of cross subsidies but allegedly did not increase telephone penetration, which was enhanced by technical progress and competition (MUELLER 1997).…”

Section: Application Of Literature To New Technical and Market Develomentioning

confidence: 99%

The Endgame of Telecommunications Policy? A Survey

Vogelsang

2013

Review of Economics

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Telecommunications policy has come a long way from regulation of vertically integrated monopolies to the current state of competition. As competition becomes selfsustainable, will telecommunications policy in the form of industry-specific regulation go away or, if not, what form will it take? The economics literature suggests that the regulatory efficiency frontier is shifted by new technological and market developments, such as convergence of networks, fixed-mobile substitution (and integration) and next generation access networks. The frontier is also affected by the existing capital stock and other physical and institutional characteristics of a country. The insights from a review of the theoretical and empirical literature are applied to five policy areas. They are: (1) termination monopoly; (2) local bottleneck access; (3) net neutrality; (4) spectrum management; and (5) universal service. While in some of them, deregulation and a move to competition policy will soon be the efficient state of the art, regulation will remain efficient in others for some time. Deregulation will likely become efficient for one-way access and universal service, with the exception of some universal service policies in remote areas and for the poor. Termination will move to bill and keep with a duty to interconnect. In addition, some (more symmetric) regulation should persist for net neutrality in the form of transparency requirements, (quasi-) common carrier obligations and minimum quality standards. Also, spectrum management, while moving towards full-blown ownership rights, will continue to see regulators providing zoning and other services, particularly for unlicensed spectrum. All these assessments are premised on the success of making additional spectrum as the key resource available. They are also premised on the absence of a killer technology like P2P FTTH that potentially dominates all other technologies. What determines the endgame in telecommunications regulation? Although technical and market developments will dominantly shape the regulatory efficiency frontier, institutional and political economy factors have an additional and mostly slowing effect on policy changes. (JEL: L43; L86; L96; L98.

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“…It also helped to prevent the abuse of monopoly power of dominant network providers. Additional efforts were made to assure that as many people as possible would have access to the telephone network despite the high costs of connecting people in remote locations in the form of "universal service" provisions of the law (Mueller, 1997).…”

Section: Origins Of the Debatementioning

confidence: 99%

The Net Neutrality Debate in the United States

Hart

2011

Journal of Information Technology & Politics

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Universal Service: Competition, Interconnection and Monopoly in the Making of the American Telephone System

Abstract: (Japanese language) (Chuokoron-Sha 1994). 3 The size and financing of "universal service obligations" (USOs) are being actively debated in Great

Cited by 29 publications

References 0 publications

Is Universal Service Justified by the Public Interest? From the Early Days to the Digital Age

Is Universal Service Justified by the Public Interest? From the Early Days to the Digital Age

The Endgame of Telecommunications Policy? A Survey

The Net Neutrality Debate in the United States

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