ABSTRACT
The massive introduction during the past 15 years of new technologies, such as microprocessors, fibre-optic cables, digital transmission and switching, ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode), broadband radio, cellular radio networks, etc., and of new services, such as ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network), wide-band data transmission, multimedia, Internet, e-mail, etc., has significantly changed this situation. From being regarded as rather backward, non-profit mammoths, the modernised telecom agencies were soon perceived as profitable and commercially interesting enterprisesand they caught the investors’ attention. Market forces started to exert pressure on governments and legislative assemblies to liberalise and deregulate the telecommunication market and to privatise the public telecom monopolies, and a wave of liberalisation and privatisation swept Europe and other parts of the world. This was in the halcyon days of ‘Thatcherism’, and involved not only the telecom monopolies, but also other public utilities such as electricity boards, gas boards, waterworks, railways, etc.
