| Entering the 21st century, telecom industry took the drastic reform and became the third largest industry next to health care and financing. With the research on its 100 member countries, ITU put forward the concept of"new telecom environment"and its characteristics as private, competitive, mobile and global. The new environment restructured the telecom industry from the broad sense and laid foundation for the new interconnection regimes.From the broad sense, the interconnected operators included the fixed operators, mobile operators, internet operators, and broadcasters. And the interconnection took place not only in the same category of operators (fixed-fixed, mobile-mobile, internet-internet), but also between different categories of operators(mobile-fixed, traditional operator-internet operator). The diversification of interconnection regimes expanded the scope of telecom regulation and enhanced its difficulties, esp. the new telecom form like internet operator challenged greatly the traditional telecom interconnection theories.Although it helped break the monopoly and advocate competition at early stage of telecom industry, the traditional interconnection theory can not meet the requirement of present telecom practices, and reduce the credibility of the traditional study framework.The study on the regulation of multioperators'interconnection can be categorized into three areas, the first is the study on the interconnection strategies of multi-operators from the perspective of regulators, which focused on the micro behavior analysis for the regulation. This study targeted on some key variables the regulators could control and monitor, which was different from the perspective of operators. The second is the study on the regulation means, tools and modes, which is the behavior analysis on the regulators. The third is the study on the regulation implementation, focusing on the regulation skills.Because of the paper's length, this study selected the first area, ie, the multi-operators interconnection strategies from the perspective of regulators as the topic, focusing the interconnection regimes of multi-operators and took the interconnection rate as the key variable, so that the study would help the regulators evade the corner of overplay. In this way, this framework would differ from the regulator's behavior analysis, and also from the regulation skills. Furthermore, it would also be different from the perspective of operators.Under the background of diversity of operators and interconnection regimes, the regulators still targeted the key variable of interconnection rate, while with the formation of stronger position of mobile operators and internet operators, the traditional regulation faced more challenge. Therefore, this paper focused vertically on the most vivid categories-mobile operators and internet operators from one aspect, while horizontally on the trans-dimension interconnection from the other aspect.From this outline, the content can be listed as following:i. This paper concluded the characteristics of modern telecom industry from the global perspective. The results showed that the trend of technical integration and the related economic and political changes did not shake the base of telecom industry. The all-range network, substitution of different technologies and network externality still persist, which should be regarded as the economic and technical basis of the interconnection study.ii. In the narrow sense of telecom, based on the Laffont-Tirole model, it focused on the interconnection regimes of mobile operators and fixed operators with simulation on the interconnection rate and its working mechanism under the assumptions of one-sided monopoly and two-sided monopoly. Finally, we testified the above conclusions with the statistics of EU and US,etc.iii. In the field of internet, this paper rooted the interconnection to the information interaction between different internet operators, based on which it studied the working mechanism between interconnection rate and users structure, pricing strategy, marketing strategy, etc.iv. Cored at the ad hoc network and grid computing, this paper introduced the mode of peering, and peering level as the substitute (negatively related) for interconnection rate to discuss the interconnection strategies of internet operators under the assumptions of existence of multi-operators and incumbent operators. The results can be applied to the non-telecom sectors peering practices.v. With the assumptions of internet-oriented and traditional telecom network oriented, this paper also figured out the interconnection strategies between traditional operators and internet operators, finally with the working mechanism of interconncetion rate on the pricing strstegy of operators, micro transfer between operators, regulation mode and relevant spill-over effect.vi. Finally, this paper considered about the path to light hand regulation, the number portability strategy's introduction can remove the switch cost and differential pricing, which directly influence the interconnected parties'benefit structure and change the interconnection rate's working mechanism accordingly.The main contributions and novelties lied in the following:i. Based on the mobile-fixed interconnection regime, this paper simulated the multi-mobile operators'interconnection rate strategies under the assumption of one-sided monopoly, and the new entrant operators'interconnection rate strategies under the assumption of two-sided monopoly. Finally it came with the hints for regulators.In the one-sided monopoly market, although the regulators can decide the interconnection rate, the rate will be higher than cost. In the oligopoly market, the regulation of interconnection rate can negatively affect the mobile users subscription, which is also adversely related to the market share of mobile operators.In the two-sided monopoly market, the bargaining power of fixed operators can break the assumption of one-sided bottleneck of mobile operators. The new entrant of mobile operators can not freely decide its interconnection rate, so that the asset erosion of fixed operators will not happen. In contrary, the fixed operators can draw part of indirect benefit from the new entrant with its inherent advantages.As for the regulators, the regulation resource should focus on the mobile operators, and set a limit flowing mechanism for interconnection rate should help balance the telecom industry. Furthermore, adcocation for the new entrants will help reduce the whole interconnection rate level with the hand of market.ii. Based on the internet interconnection regime, this paer posted the key factor affecting the operators'interconnection rate strategies like the internet users'composition etc. Finally it came with the hints for regulators.In the field of internet, this paper rooted the interconnection to the information interaction between different internet operators, so that the operators can change its micro activities with adjusting the users'composition structure. The information supplier oriented internet operator will prefer lower interconnection rate, while the information buyer oriented internet will prefer higher interconnection rate. If it can implement higher interconnection rate, the bigger operator will focus on one side of users in order to produce more off-net information interaction. While its opponent will focus on both sides of users, so that it can avoid more off-net information interaction.As for the regulators, in the field of internet, the obligation of reciprocal interconnection rate will help stablize the internet market, otherwise it will tamper the small and mid-size operators, while lowering the penetration rate of market. When it is mature, 0 interconnection rate should be introduced to reduce the transaction cost, and more information interaction would incur. In addition, the regulators should advocate the charge system for information provision, which would help foster up the information providers, and realize the information circulating in the whole society.iii. Based on the practice of 0 interconnection rate of peering, this paper testified that the internet users'base was the key factor affecting peering level of internet operators. Finally it came with the hints for regulators.In the practice of peering, the users'base was negatively related to the peering level. In addition, with the base difference expanded, the peering level will be deteriorated, ie., the peering level is also adversely related to the base difference. And the bigger operator can make target degradation with refusing to provide peering to some smaller operator.As for the regulators, peering as a new interconnection regime should be taken into a unified regulation framework. Those who advocated no regulation in internet would damper the development of internet, and finally dampered the removement of digital divide. Furthermore, the regulation focus of internet should be switched to the incumbent, esp, for its M&A.iv. Based on the traditional telecom operator-internet operator interconnection regime, this paper figured out that the role of different operators and the regulation mode can lead to changes of interconnection rate strategies of operators. Finally it came with the hints for regulators.The results showed that in the internet oriented market, since the traditional operators were strictly regulated, the freely competing internet operators can attract more internet users by lowering the retail price and subscription fee, so that more interconnection traffic will incur and the traditional operators'asset will be eroded. In the traditional operator oriented market, the more internet operators, the higher the interconnection rate and the integration of internet service for the traditional operator will adversely affect its proft maximization effect. As for the regulators, whether the regulation policy could effect or not was up to the regulators'judgement on their domestic telecom development stage. If the internet operators played as a real telecom operator, the policy permitting free pricing of interconnction rate would help realize the backbreed of traditional telecom service for new telecom service. If the internet operators relied heavily on the traditional operators, the regulators could indirectly adjust the interconnection rate with the policy of separation or integration of telecom services.v. Based on mobile-fixed interconection regime, this paper figured out that the number portability could directly affect the interconnection rate strategies of operators, and restructured the parties benefit. Finally it came with the hints for regulators.With the comparison between the conclusions under the assumptions of mobile number portability and no number portability, the results showed that number portability can remove the difference of subscription fee between the bigger operator and the smaller one, and help improve the total social welfare. Based on which, the mobile operator will prefer the higher interconnection rate. The market share of the mobile operator can decide the spill-over effect of interconnection rate. Moreover, the reduction of bigger operator's market share would lower the total mobile profit because the loss suffered by the bigger operator exeeded the revenue earned by the smaller one.As for the regulators, number portability would help increase the whole social welfare, under which the mobile operators would prefer higher interconnection rate. That's why the mobile operators should be heavily regulated under the mode of number portability.
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