ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the changes in organisational strategy that in reality help the incumbent telecom operators confront a new competitive marketplace. Privatisation leads business to become accountable to the private capital market, and raising finance in the private capital market rather than through government, exposes the management to continuous monitoring by finance centres around the world. End 2001 there were still concerns in the Swedish market about the lack of transparency of accounting information required for verifying accounting separation, cost orientation of end-user tariffs, and non- discriminatory pricing. This made it difficult to assess the cost structure and the degree to which end-user tariffs had been re-balanced. Belgacom, which possesses no cost accounting separation and just some separation of new business, can only be described as an operator with a small degree of internationalisation, and even here its position seems to be more defensive than aggressive.
