Comparative Analysis Between The Reformations Of America's And Britain's Telecommunication Industries

Telecommunication industry is a general term for all services developed on telecommunication network. According to the definition of International Telecommunication Union, telecommunication services are divided into two levels as basic telecommunication service and value added service. Telecommunication industry is characterized by its economics of scale, economics of scope and economics of external. The three economic characters make telecommunication industry become"natural monopoly"industry. In view of actual telecommunication operation, telecommunication industry can be divided into two levels: first is network system on the foundation, which obviously has the character of natural monopoly, is suitable for monopoly operation; second is relevant services attached on network system, to which the natural monopoly is challenged gradually along with scientific and technological progress, all countries are breaking the monopoly one after another to bring in competitive system.America, as the headstream of world telecommunication industry, has always guided the reformation and development of world telecommunication industry; Britain, as the pioneer of Europe telecommunication industry, has accumulated precious experience on bringing its own telecommunication industry from state-owned monopoly to overall competition, which has also accumulated precious experience on telecommunication reformation for other countries of the world. The reformation of America's and Britain's telecommunication industries shared the same experience from monopoly operation in initial stage of telecommunication industry to the stage of monopoly breaking, bringing in overall competition and return to monopoly at last because of over-competition. But one shall pay attention, telecommunication industry return again to monopoly from competition, this kind of monopoly is different from the monopoly in initial stage of telecommunication industry, it is the monopoly under efficient competition. This kind of monopoly, on the one hand, ensured common operation of multi telecommunication operators in all levels, which provided the possibility to raise operation efficiency of telecommunication industry; on the other hand, it ensured the scale economics of telecommunication industry, avoided over-competition among telecommunication operators.Viewing from the telecommunication development of America and Britain, the two countries'reformation has common point as well as different point. Reformation of America and Britain telecommunication has four common conditions: first is the scientific and technological progress weakened the natural monopoly of telecommunication industry; second is the expansion of market demand make it possible for new company entering market; third is two countries'administrative institutes gave full scope to telecommunication reformation; fourth is the signing of"WTO"telecommunication agreement speeded up the global telecommunication development, paved the way to the world.Meantime we shall notice, the reformation of America and Britain telecommunication has its own characters: first is the different foundation of two countries'telecommunication reformation, America is started with the monopoly of private enterprises, Britain is started with the monopoly of state-owned enterprises; second is the different reconstruction method of telecommunication market, America telecommunication reformation adopted market reconstruction in a narrow sense, in a short time reformed monopoly telecommunication market into competitive market structure, its reformation method is relatively radical; Britain adopted market reconstruction in a broad sense, slackened the control to bring in the competition step by step on the base of keeping present telecommunication enterprises'economic scale, its reformation method is relatively moderate; third is different in price control method, America adopted the price control method of return on revenue; Britain adopted the price ceiling method, comparatively, Britain method can encourage enterprise to increase efficiency furthermore.The reformation of America and Britain telecommunication has achieved gratifying result: first is it not only reduced telecommunication price and also increased service quality through competition; second is it brought the opportunity for consumer to choose through competition; third is it increased labor productivity through competition; fourth is it promoted national economic increasing through competition.The reformation of our country's telecommunication industry started relatively late, the reformation is started from the set up of Unicom Company in 1993 and developed gradually. Undergo a rapid development in many years, our country's telephone subscriber scale leaped to first place in the world, finally formed the competition situation mainly with six telecommunication operators of China Mobile, China Telecom, China Netcom, China Unicom, China Tietong and China Satcom. In 2006, there have 23 telecommunication enterprises listed in World Top 500, of which China Mobile and China Telecom listed in 11 and 14.But our telecommunication industry is still with many problems, manifested as: first is market competition circumstance is immature; second is telecommunication enterprises"big but not strong". Integrated the successful experience of America and Britain telecommunication development, solving above-mentioned problems from root, our telecommunication industry shall start from following stages: firstly stipulating telecommunication law, improving institute function for telecommunication control, preparing the good foundation for regulated telecommunication development; at the same time, facing the opportunity and challenge bring by 3G, promoting the innovation ability of our telecommunication through mastering advanced technology, to change completely the situation of"big but not strong"; finally, our telecommunication industry shall base on domestic, step out to the world, promote comprehensive strength of our telecommunication industry by the ways of international cooperation, merge, acquisition and international financing etc., to internationalize and accomplish the object of telecommunication giant.