This chapter shows how internationalisation transformed the telecommunications market. Transnational technological and economic developments, especially digitalisation, began to revolutionise the sector from the mid-1960s. The US greatly altered its regulatory institutions, especially in the 1970s and early 1980s, affecting the overall world telecommunications market and also providing an example for other nations. Detailed EU regulation grew from the late 1980s to provide a comprehensive framework based on competition. The three sets of international forces were analogous to those in securities trading. They also put pressures on traditional institutions that closed national markets in European nations, such as public ownership, monopoly, and regulation by governments. Thus, telecommunications provides a second similar case to securities trading to examine the effects of different forms of internationalisation on domestic institutional reform.
Keywords: telecommunications, digitalisation, US regulatory institutions, EU regulation