CIAO DATE: 01/02

The Internet and Global Telecommunications: Exploring the Boundaries of International Coordination

Abstract

Over the past five to ten years, numerous changes and innovations in the communications industry, particularly in the staid and steady world of international telecommunications, have raised questions about the suitability of regulating and governing global networks in accordance with old models. Until just a few years ago, state-owned telephone companies controlled national consumer bases of their respective countries through their monopoly carriers. Today, telecommunications companies compete globally for clientele through a largely privatized, liberalized regime. New technologies pose another fundamental challenge to traditional forms of telecommunications governance by enabling users to bypass imbedded communications networks.

One particular technology, the Internet, presents unique challenges to regulators of global telecommunications. As the Internet has emerged—from a non-regulated, localized experiment of the U. S. Department of Defense to a ubiquitous global network upon which millions of people rely to conduct professional transactions and personal communications—new approaches to law, regulation, and government involvement in the communications sector may be necessary.

The Internet and Global Telecommunications: Exploring the Boundaries of International Coordination (PDF File)