A Study On Reform Of Liberalization And Development Of ASEAN-5's Telecommunication Industry

Telecommunication was considered as a monopoly industry because of the vast investments. The economists have been trying to examine whether it should be allowed competition or keep monopoly for telecommunication industry. In 1980s, the U.K. and the America, as the forerunners, first introduced competition and opened the telecommunication markets to new entrants, which surged the telecommunication reform in the world. WTO Agreement on Basic Telecommunications signed in 1997 accelerated the telecommunication liberalization reform in the world. However, influenced by the Internet bubble, the telecommunication industry experienced an excess of investments and expansions, which resulted the telecom bubble. After the burst of the bubble, the telecommunication industry underwent a downturn and went along with restructuring for years. Since 2003 telecom industry started recovery and entered a new development stage.Starting from the background of worldwide telecommunication liberalization reform, this paper attempts to review the whole process of telecom liberalization reform in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia (ASEAN-5), giving a comprehensive evaluation toward the telecommunication reform, analyzing the reasons that telecom market concentration degree could not decrease dramatically with the industry reform. Also this paper analyzes the impacts of telecom reform on the industry competitiveness with Porter's Diamond Model in ASEAN-5.This paper is composed of six chapters as follows: ChapterⅠintroduces the topic of the telecommunication reform and its research significance & methods; ChapterⅡgives a brief introduction of telecommunication and expounds relative theories about telecommunication reform ; ChapterⅢresearches the background of telecommunication liberalization reform for ASEAN-5,including multilateral trade system and regional economic cooperation system. ChapterⅣstudies the process of telecom liberalization reform in ASEAN-5, including analyzing the reasons of liberalization, explaining the reform steps and the outcomes. ChapterⅤmakes performance evaluation about telecommunication liberalization reform. Chapter VI analyzes the impacts of telecommunication reform on the telecom industry competitiveness by Porter's Diamond Model in ASEAN-5.