International competition policy and telecommunications Lessons from the EU and prospects for the WTO

摘要

The changes in the international telecommunications market are rapidly outgrowing the existing structure of regulation. Moreover the trends in the sector indicate that if the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) rule is to be viable some form of international competition policy is needed. This must tackle the difficult problems of market access, joint ventures and anticompetitive behaviour and most importantly prevent the different approaches to these problems leading to trade frictions, especially in the USA. Such rules have proved difficult, but not necessarily impossible, to develop as the stalled talks within the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have shown. The paper considers the possible relevance of developments within EU telecommunications regulation where a competition policy-led regime is emerging.