The telecommunications market in Japan: entering the digital eraand the second phase of competition

After the liberalization of the Japanese telecommunications market in 1985, the market went through a first phase of competition, which focused on domestic telephony services, in both the long distance (domestic and international) and mobile segments. However, the growth of the Internet and the full digitalization of NTT's telecommunications network are ushering in a digital era and a second phase of competition. This article describes the current Japanese telecommunications market and the direction it is taking by referring to key statistical indicators     

International direct dialing quality in a competitive transitionaltelecommunications market

The introduction of resale-based competition in international direct dialing services in January 1999 triggered a round of extremely fierce competition in Hong Kong's IDD market. In response, both the incumbent operator and new entrants had to adopt aggressive strategies to defend or gain market share. This article reports on an intensive experiment on IDD quality provided by the major IDD operators in Hong Kong after this phase of deregulation. Based on 1790 successful IDD calls to the 10 most popular destinations from Hong Kong, the IDD quality of the major operators was benchmarked. The experiment revealed some interesting findings with significant implications for telecommunications deregulation     

VI＆P—21世纪日本电信发展的主要方向

本文讨论了日本未来社会的需求,介绍了在日本电信领域起主导作用的NTT公司推出的21世纪初期的电信业务发展目标——VI&P,并对与VI&P相关的技术和市场作了预测。     

Impact and preliminary results of telecommunications deregulationin Japan

Telecommunications deregulation in Japan has led to increased competition in telecommunications and expansion of the cable TV business. The number of telecommunication carriers has increased rapidly, resulting in the diversification of telecommunication services and reduction of charges. In the cable TV business, two multisystem operators appeared, and at the same time there was a dramatic increase in the number of cable TV subscribers. In this article the impact and preliminary results of telecommunications deregulation in Japan are outlined for the two cases of deregulation of interconnectivity among telecommunications carriers and that of the cable TV business     

日本电信改革步入新阶段

翟驼营市场经历了从完全国营到由少数企业垄断经营的过程，并自８０年代以来进入开放的阶段。日本政府制订了一系列法律法规来引导国内市场的开放。的引入使移动电话收费标准大幅下降，但在固定电话市场，ＮＴＴ依然几乎垄断着日本国内通信市场。     

Telecommunications markets, industry, and infrastructure in Korea

Following the successful deployment of basic telecommunications networks and services in the 1970s and 1980s, Korea's telecommunications sector has undergone significant environmental and technical changes. Among these are the introduction of competition in the telecommunications market, the allowance of foreign ownership of telecommunication services, and the deployment of new networks and services, all within a new legal framework. As demands for more diversified and high-quality telecommunications increase, Korea is now preparing for a major communication infrastructure that can serve as a common network foundation. Named the Korea Information Infrastructure, it is planned to provide a new network foundation that will serve as the core of the information society in the 21st century. This article describes the current status of and future perspectives on the Korean telecommunications markets, industry, and infrastructure     

Programming telecommunication networks

The move toward market deregulation and open competition has sparked a wave of serious introspection in the telecommunications service industry. Telecom providers and operators are now required to open up their primary revenue channels to competing industries. The competition for product differentiation increasingly depends on the level of sophistication, degree of flexibility, and speed of deployment of services that a future provider can offer. These factors in turn depend heavily on the flexibility of the software architecture in place in a provider's operational infrastructure. Within this context, we examine the service architecture of two major global communication networks-the telephone network and the Internet and explore their weaknesses and strengths. We discuss the realization of an open programmable networking environment based on a new service architecture for advanced telecommunication services that overcomes the limitations of the existing networks. Our approach to network programmability stems from two angles-one conceptual, the other implementational. In the first, we attempt to develop a service model that is open and reflects the economic market structure of the future telecommunications service industry. Furthermore, we introduce an extended reference model for realizing the service marketplace and present it as a vehicle for creating multimedia services with QoS guarantees. In the second, we investigate the feasibility of engineering the reference model from an implementation standpoint. We describe a realization of the open programmable networking environment as a broadband kernel. Called xbind, the broadband kernel incorporates IP and CORBA technologies for signaling, management, and service creation, and ATM for transport. We also address some of the important QoS, performance, scalability, and implementation issues     

日本电信业最新发展

自１９９９年中期以来,日本电信界以ＮＴＴ重组为契机,从市场和用户的需求出,在继续推动传统业务不断发展的同时,积极推出一批基于ＩＰ技术的新业务,特别是ＮＴＴＤｏＣｏＭｏ推出的ｉ－ｍｏｌｄｅ移动数据业务,在世界上更是处于领先地位,对将来实施３Ｇ进行了有益探讨。     

The development of telecommunications in China

This article reviews the achievements and history of telecommunications development in China, and analyzes the development of the telecommunications services market in China. The analysis is mainly focused on total turnover of telecommunications services, the development of telecommunications services, and competition in the market. Finally, it analyzes issues on policies and regulations for telecommunications, and gives development targets for the future     

Concurrence entre réseaux de télécommunications: les conséquences des externalités négatives *

The authors offer a theoretical model for studying the consequences of competition between long distance telecommunications networks. Contrarily to a recent paper by Katz-Shapiro, from which our model is inspired, we put the stress on negative externalities. In this context, we prove that competition is very likely to imply degradation of the quality of the services offered to the customers.     

Japan telecommunications at the crossroads

Changes introduced into telecommunications by digital technology since 1985, (when the Japanese Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corp. was turned from a Government-owned monopoly to a private company, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT)) have led to a call for completely revamped approach. The main concern is to solve the problems of unequal competitive conditions existing between new common carriers and a single dominant carrier. The nature of the abovementioned changes is examined, and a proposal to split NTT into one local telephone company and one toll company is discussed, focusing on its possible effects     

Telecommunications and the future

The effect of deregulation on the telecommunications industry and GTEs strategy in the resulting competitive environment are examined. The impact of increased competition on research and development efforts is discussed. The relationships among the US Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, and the industry are explored. Economic factors in a system that carries unregulated as well as regulated services and goals for the industry are considered     

Learning from i-mode [packet-based mobile network]

Amid all the hype and uncertainty surrounding the 'mobile Internet', there is one undeniable success story: NTT DoCoMo's i-mode service in Japan. A key factor in i-mode's success has been its construction on top of a packet-based mobile network. To the subscriber, i-mode is a new mobile service. They can make voice calls in the normal way, but a new range of services is also available through the screen, keypad and navigation buttons. To the operator, in this case NTT DoCoMo, i-mode provides a way to attract new users and increase telecommunications revenue. The latter comes from two sources: first, charges for data transmission on a per-packet basis; secondly, an entirely new source of income as a collector of payments on behalf of third party information providers. The i-mode concept brings together several different elements to create a successful formula     

电信竞争三部曲

随着国内电信产业竞争日益加剧，电信运营企业的竞争方式正在潜移默化地发生着并且将要发生本质上的变化。电信市场的竞争方式从价格竞争开端，演变为质量竞争，最终将升级为全新的价值竞争阶段，从而形成了电信竞争的三部曲，本通过对电信市场竞争，用户满意和两种价值链的分析，阐述了电信竞争由价格竞争，质量竞争过渡到价值竞争的内在必然性，同时也对电信运营企业在新形势下成功地开展价值竞争提出了新的思路和建议。     

Europe and the Global Information Society: The history of a troubled relationship

It is argued that recent developments in European Union policy towards the Information Society need to be understood as the latest phase in a history of telecommunications policy making going back to the Union's earliest days. This history combines two strands: (a) a battle between the Commission and the European national PTTs over the co-ordinate and control of telecommunications networks and services; and (b) an industrial policy to support Europe's Information and Commnication technology industries in the face of US and Japanese competition. At the same time Commission policy was marked by a tension between the industrial policy, favoured by DGXIII, which lead to RACE and the Fourth Framework Programme and the competition policy enshrined in the Treaty of Rome of which DGIV was the guardian. It is argued that the new Information Society programme is an attempt to mediate these tensions which can only be successful so long as it remains at the level of rhetoric but will inevitably break apart once concrete action is called for.     

中国电信发展移动业务的策略分析

随着通信技术的飞速发展和通信领域竞争的加剧,为了迎接新的机遇与挑战,中国电信必须不断寻找和开拓新的电信业务增长点。开展移动业务无疑能极大地刺激中国电信业务的飞速增长,提高中国电信的整体竞争能力。本文分析了中国电信进入移动业务市场的三个不同切入点,并就移动通信的组网规划和经营策略进行了一些初步的探讨。     

Effects of deregulation on competitive market opportunities

On January 1, 1984, AT&T was divested of its 22 operating companies. On this same date the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) deregulated customer premise equipment (CPE) thereby restricting the telephone company's (telco) monopoly. This stimulated competition in the telecommunications marketplace while also individualizing the logistical channel of distribution and the communication channel. In the past demand within the logistical channel was dependent upon demand within the communication channel. The surge of competition ignited by the regulatory changes significantly altered these relations. Competition from supplier interconnects as well as long distance carriers are causing shifts that are changing the industry structure. This paper explores the interdependency of the logistical and communication channels within the environment of deregulation.     

Telecommunications [Brazil]

Although information technology is a burgeoning industry in Brazil, the closely related telecommunications sector has not kept pace. A huge, unsatisfied demand must wait for private investment to upgrade and expand services and offer new ones. With the government committed to selling to private interests much of the telecommunications sector, US long distance and regional telephone companies, and many value-added resellers and equipment vendors are mapping out business strategies for the country. Today, the telecom market is worth US $8 billion, and could grow to $11 billion by the end of 1998. Between 1996 and 1999, an estimated US $32 billion must be invested in Brazil's communications infrastructure to raise the basic wire-line connections to a desired 33 million, up from 14.2 million in April 1994. Telebras, the government communications company, could perhaps come up with half of the amount needed. The remainder will have to come from private investors, domestic and foreign, hence the Ministry of Communication's desire to sell-off government-owned telecommunications firms     

Data communications: where regulators clash with reality

Exponential advances in telecommunications and computer technology are driving the United States and the world into the information age, an age of instantaneous and massive communication all over the world. The rapid pace of new technology has made the old concept of the franchised telephone monopoly obsolete-an obsolescence confirmed and hastened by the 1996 Telecommunications Act. However, the new environment has also made traditional modes of telecommunications regulation obsolete. In this article, the authors argue that, in many key areas, regulators are actually standing in the way of delivery of the information age to many Americans. Traditional regulation has long controlled such key aspects of a regulated telephone company's operations as the introduction of new services and the price at which services must be offered to the public. These regulations, as applied to the last remaining heavily regulated telecommunications firms, the local exchange carriers, have reached the point where they are now counterproductive and anti-investment. Particularly in the world of data communications, where everything is new, regulators should strive to reduce regulatory burdens in order that the market forces which new technologies are unleashing can bring benefits to the entire public