| In recent years, the telecom industry has witnessedskyrocketing development and the telecom development structure hasalso undergone a fundamental change. Only after seeing through thetelecom development environment can businesses adapt itself to thenew situation, embrace opportunities, and achieve success in newcompetitions. In this paper, an in-depth look is made into theinternational and domestic telecom development environment, whileopportunities and challenges are pointed out. The impact of China'sentry into WR on the nation's telecom environment is alsoexplained. There are two fundamental issues for the Chinese telecomindustry refonn. One is why a reform is necessary, the other is howthe reform should be carried out.At the initial stage, the telecom industry is a typical naturalmonopoly industry. The monopoly firm can get the advantage of scaleeconomy. The stringent control of the number of the telecom networkoperators in the market is the rudimentary means of macro- controlover the repetitive construction of the network infrastructure and aneffective curb on the waste of the network resources. However, inan insufficient competition market environment, the monopoly firm isshort of the motivation to improve efficiency and reduce prices, thusit prevents the increase of the market demand to telecom service,and further hinders the development of the telecom industry. Onlymarket competition can make the monopoly firm improve efficiencyand reduce prices. At the same time, the self-regulatory role of themarket economy over the demand-and-supply relationship is alsoconductive to the diminishing of the repetition scale.The development of the telecommunication technology haschanged the character of natural monopoly in the telecom industrysince 1980's. Because of the appliance of optical fibertelecommunication technique, the transmit cost goes down largely.The transmit cost is no longer decided by the distance of transmit,but by the utilization efficiency of communication networks. Mobilecommunications and computer communications substitute for fixedconinunications. In a point of view, the "three networks"convergence, the telecom network, computer network and cabletelevision network, has developed into a broadband infrastructure.The "three networks" convergence demands for deregulating to thetelecom industry, opening the domestic telecom market to the `wvrkl,and introducing the market competition.Because state regulation or nationalization can't build a highefficiency telecom industry which is highly sensitive to consumersdemand and development of the telecommunication technology. Mostcountries around the world have deregulated the telecom industry andprivatized the nationalized telecom industry. Competition has beengradually introduced into the telecom market. The universal service-policy has been implemented in the US for more than 100 years and anumber of countries have followed suit. The cross-subsidy basedregulatory system played a positive role in certain historical period ortechnical background. However, it is inexitable that cost-basedtariff will replace the cross-subsidization method, allowing faircompetition. The new Telecommunications Act of US was endorsedin 1996. The Act permits long-distance call companies to enter thelocal call market, local call companies to the long-distance callmarket, and other communication companies to the long-distance and.7.local call market. The British telecom market saw an operationalparadym shift from the primitive soly state-mn mechanism tomonopolization harnessed by only a handful of operators, and hasentered a progressively liberalized period since the 1980's. TheBritish government mapped out a range of la~ and regulations toprovide guidance in the course of market liberalization. Theintmduction of competition led to a sharp fall... |
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