ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the liberalization of both the postal and telecommunications sectors. Postal services were successfully developed by medieval city-states in Europe and typically operated by private operators. Postal services are the oldest network industry and as such are not really the result of some technological innovation or even revolution, as are railways or electricity, for example. The postal sector was the first network industry, but it may also be the first one to disappear. Postal financial services are still a business in some countries where posts have managed to turn into banks, but basically postal financial services are a thing of the past. Telecommunications follow quite logically from the postal services. Prior to the liberalization of the telecommunications sector in the 1990s in Europe, the breakup of AT&T, the US private monopoly, occurred in 1982 by the US antitrust authority. Economies of scale enhanced the telecommunication operators’ monopolies.
