Telecommunications in China: Organising Broadband Access and Competition

The telecommunications market in China is the largest in the world, with more landlines and mobile telephones than in any other country, including the USA. The next phase of telecommunications world-wide involves a migration to broadband, to high-speed and always-on networks, and here the market in China is proving slow to develop, lack of competition being identified as a key factor. This book examines the structure of the telecommunications market in China and the regulatory regime which underpins it, and argues for changes in the regulatory regime in order to stimulate better market-led development going forward. It demonstrates that the approach taken in North America and Europe is not appropriate, the approach adopted there generating excessive rent-seeking and necessitating heavy-handed regulation. Instead, it proposes a different approach, where the definition of property rights within the networks, rather than regulatory price setting, is central. The book's imaginative, original andwell-argued conclusions are of vital importance for a range of people interested in management, industrial structure, the economics of markets, telecommunications engineering, and the development of China's economy.

Part 1: Introduction 1. Introduction Part 2: Transformation of Local Access Networks 2. Starting Point: Physical Characteristics & Industrial Structure 3. Demand Side: Increasing Bandwidth & Heterogeneity 4. Supply Side: Technologies & Transforming Industrial Structure 5. China's Circumstances Part 3: Approaches to Organizing the Broadband Access Market for Competition 6. China's Present Approach 7. Mainstream Approach 8. Proposed Approach Part 4: Concluding Remarks 9. Conclusion