- Email: [email protected]
OECD regulatory and statistical update
Telecommunications Policy 23 (1999) 683}686
Short communication
OECD regulatory and statistical update Sam Paltridge*,1 OECD, Directorate of Science, Technology and Industry (DSTI), 2 rue Andre Pascal, 75775 Paris, Cedex 16, France
1. Regulatory update The "rst edition of the OECD Communications Outlook noted that there was a trend towards liberalisation of telecommunication service and equipment markets, but that signi"cant di!erences existed between Member countries2. By 1990, only Japan, New Zealand and the United States had liberalised the provision of public switched telecommunication networks (PSTN). Even in these countries, competition was largely limited to long distance and international services. In other countries, monopolies and a small number of duopolies, were in place. The United Kingdom had a duopoly over the provision of "xed telecommunication infrastructure and, along with a small number of other countries, a duopoly over cellular mobile communication infrastructures. Although the process commenced slowly, the bene"ts of liberalisation were increasingly evident to OECD governments by the early 1990s. While most countries still had monopolies for the provision of PSTN services, liberalisation was well under way in the provision of customer premise equipment and value-added services. Momentum was also building to permit resale of the underlying infrastructure and for the emerging market in cellular mobile communications to be far less constrained by regulation than "xed networks. Between 1990 and 1995, the pioneers of liberalisation were joined by Australia, Canada, Sweden and Finland in a second wave of "xed network liberalisation. In some cases, such as Finland and Sweden, countries went beyond the initial competition policies pioneered in the mid-1980s. Others mirrored the transitional approach of the pioneers of "xed network liberalisation by adopting a duopoly (Australia) or by not opening all market segments (Canada). Other countries had a di!erent approach, for example Korea introduced competition for international services in 1991. These two markets were fully liberalised, when Australia ended its duopoly (July 1997) and Canada ended Teleglobe's monopoly over international service (October 1998). * Tel.: #33-1-45-24-93-79; fax: #33-1-45-24-93-32. E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Paltridge) 1 The views re#ected in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily re#ect those of the OECD or its Member countries. 2 This article is based on information drawn from the OECD, Communications Outlook, Paris, 1999. http://www.oecd. org/dsti/sti/it/cm/index.htm. 0308-5961/99/$ - see front matter ( 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 3 0 8 - 5 9 6 1 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 6 1 - 0
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S. Paltridge / Telecommunications Policy 23 (1999) 683}686
Fig. 1. Fixed network infrastructure competition in OECD countries.
The market structures for the public-switched telecommunication network changed signi"cantly in 1998. Many countries issued a number of new licences to new entrants, in most cases to provide the range of public telephone services o!ered over the PSTN. The marked progress in "xed network infrastructure competition is apparent in Fig. 1, which maps the changing number of OECD countries opening their markets to new entrants. Looking forward, the dates for which other OECD countries are planning to open their markets, are Portugal (2000), Czech Republic and Greece (2001), Hungary (2002), Poland (2003) and Turkey (2006). As liberalisation developed in PSTN markets, a growing number of countries felt con"dent enough in the bene"ts of liberalisation to issue multiple licences for the provision of mobile communication infrastructure. In 1989, only six OECD countries did not have monopolies over the provision of cellular mobile communication infrastructure. Each of these six countries had duopolies. A decade later, all OECD countries had licensed at least two cellular mobile communication operators and most have three or more. In 1999, the United States had up to seven competing infrastructure providers in some service areas. The much more rapid change in mobile cellular market liberalisation is shown in Fig. 2. 2. Spotlight indicator: internet hosts By July 1999, there were more than 52 million Internet hosts in the OECD area representing 93% of the global total3. Host surveys are the most common indicators used to measure Internet 3 This article is based on information drawn from the OECD, Communications Outlook, Paris, 1999. http://www.oecd. org/dsti/sti/it/cm/index.htm.
S. Paltridge / Telecommunications Policy 23 (1999) 683}686
685
Fig. 2. Mobile network infrastructure competition in OECD countries.
development and are undertaken by Network Wizards, for the Internet Software Consortium (ISC), and Reseaux IP EuropeH ens (RIPE). Network Wizards de"ne an Internet host as a domain name that has an associated IP address record. This would be any computer system connected to the Internet (via full- or part-time, direct or dial-up connections), such as oecd.org and www.oecd.org. The Network Wizards survey includes all country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) and generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) and is undertaken every six months. The RIPE survey is undertaken monthly but is limited to ccTLD registrations in their service area (i.e. the European and African continents). While both surveys are much appreciated by the Internet community, the results need to be quali"ed and have several limitations. One quali"cation that needs to be made is that host data, do not indicate the total number of users who can access the Internet. Surveys of Internet hosts may only be interpreted as the minimum size of the &public Internet', as it is impossible to determine the number of users accessing services via each host. Internet surveys of hosts provide one indicator of Internet development and may be used as one potential indicator of comparative Internet development between countries. The main limitations are not reaching all hosts, and the structure of the domain name system being such that there is no guarantee that all hosts under a particular domain are located in a certain geographic location. The reachable hosts of a user in France, registering under a gTLD, would appear under domains such as.com or.net rather than .fr. Nor is it necessarily the fact that a host using a second level domain under.fr will be physically located in France. For example, around 1% of the content under.gr (the ccTLD for Greece) is located in Canada. That having been said, the OECD's observations are that by far the majority of hosts using ccTLDs are located in the country concerned. The availability of data on gTLD registrations by country presents the possibility of redistributing Internet hosts under domain names such as.com to individual countries. The simplest option is to weigh the number of hosts under gTLDs according to the number of gTLD registrations from
686
S. Paltridge / Telecommunications Policy 23 (1999) 683}686
Fig. 3. Internet hosts per 1000 inhabitants, July 1999.
a particular country. In other words, if 5% of the total gTLD registrations are from a particular country then 5% of the total number of hosts surveyed under gTLDs are reallocated to that country. This methodology could, no doubt, be subject to a number of caveats. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to assume that this approach gives a more accurate distribution of Internet hosts, in OECD countries than allocating all hosts under gTLD registrations to the United States. The results of the weighed methodology are shown in Fig. 3. Most striking is the case of Canada where, because of the popularity of.com with Canadian users, there was a large increase in the number of hosts over the number of hosts surveyed solely under.ca. Other countries recording signi"cant increases, albeit from smaller base numbers of hosts, include Turkey, Spain, Luxembourg and France. The countries for which this made very little di!erence are those, where users mainly rely on ccTLD registrations, such as Iceland, the Czech Republic, New Zealand and Poland. The additional hosts under.com allocated to Finland made it the "rst country in the OECD area to pass 100 hosts per 1000 inhabitants in 1998. The next closest countries by rank are the United States, Iceland, Sweden, Canada and Norway. Denmark, New Zealand, Australia and Switzerland are the other four countries to have reached 60 hosts per 1000 inhabitants by July 1999.
Short communication
OECD regulatory and statistical update Sam Paltridge*,1 OECD, Directorate of Science, Technology and Industry (DSTI), 2 rue Andre Pascal, 75775 Paris, Cedex 16, France
1. Regulatory update The "rst edition of the OECD Communications Outlook noted that there was a trend towards liberalisation of telecommunication service and equipment markets, but that signi"cant di!erences existed between Member countries2. By 1990, only Japan, New Zealand and the United States had liberalised the provision of public switched telecommunication networks (PSTN). Even in these countries, competition was largely limited to long distance and international services. In other countries, monopolies and a small number of duopolies, were in place. The United Kingdom had a duopoly over the provision of "xed telecommunication infrastructure and, along with a small number of other countries, a duopoly over cellular mobile communication infrastructures. Although the process commenced slowly, the bene"ts of liberalisation were increasingly evident to OECD governments by the early 1990s. While most countries still had monopolies for the provision of PSTN services, liberalisation was well under way in the provision of customer premise equipment and value-added services. Momentum was also building to permit resale of the underlying infrastructure and for the emerging market in cellular mobile communications to be far less constrained by regulation than "xed networks. Between 1990 and 1995, the pioneers of liberalisation were joined by Australia, Canada, Sweden and Finland in a second wave of "xed network liberalisation. In some cases, such as Finland and Sweden, countries went beyond the initial competition policies pioneered in the mid-1980s. Others mirrored the transitional approach of the pioneers of "xed network liberalisation by adopting a duopoly (Australia) or by not opening all market segments (Canada). Other countries had a di!erent approach, for example Korea introduced competition for international services in 1991. These two markets were fully liberalised, when Australia ended its duopoly (July 1997) and Canada ended Teleglobe's monopoly over international service (October 1998). * Tel.: #33-1-45-24-93-79; fax: #33-1-45-24-93-32. E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Paltridge) 1 The views re#ected in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily re#ect those of the OECD or its Member countries. 2 This article is based on information drawn from the OECD, Communications Outlook, Paris, 1999. http://www.oecd. org/dsti/sti/it/cm/index.htm. 0308-5961/99/$ - see front matter ( 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 3 0 8 - 5 9 6 1 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 6 1 - 0
684
S. Paltridge / Telecommunications Policy 23 (1999) 683}686
Fig. 1. Fixed network infrastructure competition in OECD countries.
The market structures for the public-switched telecommunication network changed signi"cantly in 1998. Many countries issued a number of new licences to new entrants, in most cases to provide the range of public telephone services o!ered over the PSTN. The marked progress in "xed network infrastructure competition is apparent in Fig. 1, which maps the changing number of OECD countries opening their markets to new entrants. Looking forward, the dates for which other OECD countries are planning to open their markets, are Portugal (2000), Czech Republic and Greece (2001), Hungary (2002), Poland (2003) and Turkey (2006). As liberalisation developed in PSTN markets, a growing number of countries felt con"dent enough in the bene"ts of liberalisation to issue multiple licences for the provision of mobile communication infrastructure. In 1989, only six OECD countries did not have monopolies over the provision of cellular mobile communication infrastructure. Each of these six countries had duopolies. A decade later, all OECD countries had licensed at least two cellular mobile communication operators and most have three or more. In 1999, the United States had up to seven competing infrastructure providers in some service areas. The much more rapid change in mobile cellular market liberalisation is shown in Fig. 2. 2. Spotlight indicator: internet hosts By July 1999, there were more than 52 million Internet hosts in the OECD area representing 93% of the global total3. Host surveys are the most common indicators used to measure Internet 3 This article is based on information drawn from the OECD, Communications Outlook, Paris, 1999. http://www.oecd. org/dsti/sti/it/cm/index.htm.
S. Paltridge / Telecommunications Policy 23 (1999) 683}686
685
Fig. 2. Mobile network infrastructure competition in OECD countries.
development and are undertaken by Network Wizards, for the Internet Software Consortium (ISC), and Reseaux IP EuropeH ens (RIPE). Network Wizards de"ne an Internet host as a domain name that has an associated IP address record. This would be any computer system connected to the Internet (via full- or part-time, direct or dial-up connections), such as oecd.org and www.oecd.org. The Network Wizards survey includes all country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) and generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) and is undertaken every six months. The RIPE survey is undertaken monthly but is limited to ccTLD registrations in their service area (i.e. the European and African continents). While both surveys are much appreciated by the Internet community, the results need to be quali"ed and have several limitations. One quali"cation that needs to be made is that host data, do not indicate the total number of users who can access the Internet. Surveys of Internet hosts may only be interpreted as the minimum size of the &public Internet', as it is impossible to determine the number of users accessing services via each host. Internet surveys of hosts provide one indicator of Internet development and may be used as one potential indicator of comparative Internet development between countries. The main limitations are not reaching all hosts, and the structure of the domain name system being such that there is no guarantee that all hosts under a particular domain are located in a certain geographic location. The reachable hosts of a user in France, registering under a gTLD, would appear under domains such as.com or.net rather than .fr. Nor is it necessarily the fact that a host using a second level domain under.fr will be physically located in France. For example, around 1% of the content under.gr (the ccTLD for Greece) is located in Canada. That having been said, the OECD's observations are that by far the majority of hosts using ccTLDs are located in the country concerned. The availability of data on gTLD registrations by country presents the possibility of redistributing Internet hosts under domain names such as.com to individual countries. The simplest option is to weigh the number of hosts under gTLDs according to the number of gTLD registrations from
686
S. Paltridge / Telecommunications Policy 23 (1999) 683}686
Fig. 3. Internet hosts per 1000 inhabitants, July 1999.
a particular country. In other words, if 5% of the total gTLD registrations are from a particular country then 5% of the total number of hosts surveyed under gTLDs are reallocated to that country. This methodology could, no doubt, be subject to a number of caveats. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to assume that this approach gives a more accurate distribution of Internet hosts, in OECD countries than allocating all hosts under gTLD registrations to the United States. The results of the weighed methodology are shown in Fig. 3. Most striking is the case of Canada where, because of the popularity of.com with Canadian users, there was a large increase in the number of hosts over the number of hosts surveyed solely under.ca. Other countries recording signi"cant increases, albeit from smaller base numbers of hosts, include Turkey, Spain, Luxembourg and France. The countries for which this made very little di!erence are those, where users mainly rely on ccTLD registrations, such as Iceland, the Czech Republic, New Zealand and Poland. The additional hosts under.com allocated to Finland made it the "rst country in the OECD area to pass 100 hosts per 1000 inhabitants in 1998. The next closest countries by rank are the United States, Iceland, Sweden, Canada and Norway. Denmark, New Zealand, Australia and Switzerland are the other four countries to have reached 60 hosts per 1000 inhabitants by July 1999.