Domestic Satellites, the FCC, and Competition in Domestic Telecommunicationt
研究了1960年代卫星通信技术发展如何引发国内长途电信市场结构变化，包括供应商增加、竞争加剧和进入威胁增强，并分析了FCC监管的作用。
The development of satellite communication technology in the 1960s raised the potential for technical change in domestic, long-distance telecommunications.1 It also raised the potential for change in market structure. The effect on market structure, which was made possible by the emergence of a new group of potential suppliers of longdistance telecommunication services and a changed set of conditions of production, is the subject of this paper. It is shown that the development of satellite technology touched off forces leading to an increase in the number of actual suppliers, the development of more intense rivalry among existing suppliers, and increased significance of the threat of entry as a force in shaping market behavior. All of these changes in market structure herald increased competition. The potential for increased competition in long-distance telecommunications followed from a change in technology that was essentially exogenous to the industry.2 Interest in the new technology reflected the evaluation by firms that satellite operations would be profitable and, in the case of new suppliers, that a challenge to existing producers and the development of new markets were warranted. However, in actual practice, change in technology and market structure did not follow automatically from nor solely as a result of the interest of commercial enterprises. Because domestic telecommunication is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the potential forces for change inherent in the commercial interest in satellite communication translated