Promoting the Superhighway: Telecommunications Regulation in Europe
分析欧洲电信监管如何影响产业发展，指出当前定价效率低下，主张通过更灵活的定价和透明度来促进信息高速公路建设，对研究电信政策的经济学者有参考价值。
Promoting the superhighway Telecommunications regulation in Europe The telecommunications and electronic transmission industry is hugely innovative yet highly regulated. How do regulation and the legal framework affect the industry's development? I discuss sources of inefficiencies in existing pricing of telephony and identify dynamic costs in addition to the conventional static ones. More efficient pricing with greater flexibility will expand the range of services that are available. This will bring an external benefit to all potential users and may in turn help contribute towards a superhighway, since there will be higher demand and an associated increase in knowledge of potential demand for the range of services that can support such massive infrastructure investment. The EU looks set to move in the opposite direction and there appears to be a conflict between short-term policy and the long-run vision of the information society. Recent reports argue in favour of uniform mark-up strategies and leaving precise rules to member states. I argue that the EU should be more positive, encourage wider pricing flexibility (perhaps through wide price caps) combined with transparency, and ensure appropriate application of EU competition policy rather than favour simple pricing rules to avoid potential abuse. —Paul A. Grout