The Regulatory Reform Of The Telecommunications Industry In China

A far-reaching reform on regulation has been carried out in the developed countries since 1970's, which is intended to introduce the mechanism of competition to the traditionally natural monopolistic industries, such as the telecommunications industry. This reform has achieved great success and greatly improved the economic efficiency of the industries. Telecommunication is a traditionally natural monopolistic industry and its regulatory reform has held great attention of many people all over the world. The most important and crucial issues in the regulation of monopolistic industries in China are: who will regulate, what should be regulated, who will be regulated, how to regulate and who will regulate the regulator. From the development of the regulatory policies of telecommunications industry in China, we have seen the trend of deregulation, the introduction and the encouragement of competition, which is also the trend of international regulatory reform of the telecommunications industries. From the development of the telecommunications industry in China, we can see the great improvement and change in the industry which is brought about by the regulatory policies. However, we also have to seriously analyze the problems and drawback existing in the reform. The purpose of this reform is to break the monopoly and achieve the effective competition, but the effect of the so-called taking-apart reform is not so ideal. Essentially, the true sticking point of the monopoly in the industry is the monopoly in administration and the imperfect of the law system. However, the so-called taking-apart reform can not solve the institutional problems basically. The research method of this paper is from the theory to the practice. Beginning with the theory of natural monopoly and regulation, it analyzes the development and reform process of the telecommunications industry in foreign countries. Then on this base, along with the analysis of the reform in our country, it offers the pricing model of telecommunications and the analysis of the intercommunication problem. Lastly, many related theories and countermeasure for the reform of regulation are given in this paper, considering the existing problems in the telecommunications industry of our country and experiences and lessons attained from other countries.