ABSTRACT
The telecommunication market has been, for a long time, characterized by a set of very specific features that distinguished it from all other markets. Both in the Far East and in eastern Europe, the development of telecommunication services was a step behind the United States and western Europe and, at least in communist countries, was often more influenced by political reasons than by a real need coming from the users. The customer base of telecommunication carriers was divided into two big categories—business and consumer customers—where revenues coming from consumers were much higher in the typical case than revenues coming from business customers. The Internet revolution brought about a sudden evolution in transmission and switching techniques and a complete redesign of the telecommunication network. The telecommunication market coming out from the bubble in 2002 was definitely a competitive market in all its segments, both in Europe and the United States.
