Slides are now available for our March seminar: "Governments in the Telco business: prudential investment or pursuing non-economic purposes?"
"Governments in the Telco business: prudential investment or pursuing non-economic purposes?"
Wednesday 31 March, 12.30-1.30pm
Government Buildings Lecture Theatre 1
Governments around the world are attempting to 'invest' in infrastructure for the perceived 'future needs' of their nations. Locally, New Zealand and Australian governments have spent the past thirty years corporatising and privatising formerly government-owned incumbents, and liberalising the telecommunications markets by removing regulatory barriers to competition and inducing private sector entry via mechanisms such as access regulation and local loop unbundling. Now, government-funded National Broadband Networks are now being rolled out to cope with these future challenges, real or imagined.
What motivates these government investments that appear to be turning the industry ownership clock back 30 years? What are they likely to achieve? And why can't the market deliver such outcomes? Indeed, what are the desirable outcomes?
Bronwyn Howell, General Manager of ISCR, has extensive research experience and has written widely on broadband, telecommunications, internet copyright and property rights in Australasian, North American and European contexts. Her work has been extensively cited in recent FCC proceedings on regulatory options for the United States, and she participated as an invited speaker at the Asian Development Bank/Brookings Institution/CAMA-hosted conference 'The Economics of Infrastructure in a Globalised World: Issues, Lessons and Future Challenges' in March 2010.