ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the general issue of ‘normalising’ public policy towards the telecommunications and related industries. By normalisation, I mean the application of conventional competition policy approaches, rather than the use of industry-specific and interventionist regulation. If the latter approach is essentially prescriptive-the regulator, for example, fixes prices and quality standards directly, the competition approach is proscriptive, in the sense that certain courses of conduct are prohibited, but a firm avoiding such practices can do what it likes.
