ABSTRACT
Telecommunications is an area of explosive development. New products and new technologies appear almost every week. New companies, trying to fit into one of the new niches in the market, pop up faster than we can keep track of. Public authorities give their blessing to these developments through their new regulatory regimes, arguing that the consumer will benefit from the increased competition in the end, in the form of lower prices and more choice. In this introduction we will set out a broad frame of reference for the discussion in the following chapters. We will sketch our interpretation of current developments, and raise some salient questions that will be revisited at the end of the book. We also pose the question: is the current liberalisation process with all its supporters, from all sides of the political spectrum, a real change in the thinking about public services, or are there signs that all we see is old politics and the protection of domestic industry in a new guise?
