"The global telecommunications infrastructure: European Community (Union) telecommunications developments"

[From the Introduction]. Information, electronics, and telecommunication technologies promise to create communications networks of greatly expanded capacity capable of moving messages across interconnected wired and wireless systems almost anywhere in the world. Such global systems will profoundly affect the economic and social life of all countries. For those countries and economic sectors with a history of significant involvement in electronics, computers, multimedia, and telecommunications, early and timely deployment of state-of-the-art infrastructure may be a matter of prime importance. Many individual countries have made or are making changes intended to accelerate movement toward an information society, in large part because they recognize that a strategic competitive edge in the world economy will likely depend increasingly upon the availability, use, and exploitation of information. A major participant in the information race is the European Union (EU), formerly the European Community. The Commission of the European Union (Commission) has launched a strong push to adopt a common strategy for the creation of a European information society driven by a European information infrastructure. This strategy is aimed at bridging individual initiatives being pursued by EU Member States. [1. Member States now in the Union include the following: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom, Austria, Finland and Sweden joined the Union on January 1, 1995.1

The coherence of EU trade, competition, and industry policies in the high tech sector : the case of the telecommunications services sector

We analyze the coherence existing among European Union competition, industry, and trade policies in the high tech sector in general terms focusing on its specific features (externalities, fast progress) and their effects on the emergence and treatment of policy consistency and conflicts. Second, this analysis is applied to the European telecommunications services sector. The examination of this sector and the relevant EU policies reveals a consensus on giving priority to competition. However structural factors prevent policy implementation to reflect much liberalization and harmonization and business responses to trade globalization challenge effective competition. The potential, important role of standardization is shown.economics of technology ;

Broadband : towards a national plan for Scotland

The development of national broadband plans has been used by many countries to join up different areas of governmental and regulatory activities and to set ambitious targets for ubiquitous access to and use of the latest fixed and wireless networks and services. For Scotland this requires working within EU and UK legislative frameworks, which have also provided the bulk of the finance for interventions. It also requires an understanding of the significant weaknesses of urban broadband adoption compared to other UK and EU nations and of its e-commerce supply and demand. While resources are being targeted at rural and remote areas, more are needed to close the social digital divide, which is unavoidable if the stated ambition of being world class is to be achieved