An Innovation-Centric Approach of Telecommunications Infrastructure Regulation

This paper considers the mechanics and role of innovation in telecommunications networks and explains how regulation can be designed to maximize innovation. Several reasons are presented for why the fast-changing, networked, and technical nature of telecommunications offers a favorable environment for innovation to thrive, as well as why innovation benefits from a large number of actors. Moreover, the Article further explains that even small players are useful in the innovation process and that a decentralized polyarchic system of innovation can work, without that meaning that it is superior to centralized innovation. The Article suggests that the goal of a diverse and populous pool of actors is reconcilable with both the high barriers to entry in telecommunications and the disincentives sharing obligations may create. The key is to construct a system of regulation whereby entry is facilitated only while competition remains underdeveloped. The overall tradeoff is a few years of managed competition and suppressed incentives for a properly working competitive market in the long run.