city university london school of social sciences convergence of ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

service. Besides, regulators tend to provide a robust consumer protection mechanismtaking into account the converging services environment and this is another factorleading to improvements in consumer service quality. After all, it wouldn‟t be wrongto argue that convergence and its regulation have a positive effect on quality ofservice.Convergence is also „introducing new issues that may require regulation, includingsecurity, privacy and consumer protection‟ (Melody et.al.:2003, p.vii). Since itbecomes much easier to transmit information through internet and collectinformation regarding people, privacy protection and its regulation gain importancein a converging environment. It is stated by Henten et.al. (2002) that, consumerprotection is an important issue in a converging environment and „consumers mustbe protected against low quality products, late delivery or pure and simple fraud‟(p.24). As society is becoming more dependent on electronic communicationsnetworks and services, it is important for regulators to constitute a regulatoryframework addressing security and privacy problems in order to protect consumersand citizens.Intellectual property rights constitute another area where converged environmentcreates problems. Convergence, accompanied by the ability to access, distribute andmanipulate content creates a problem for intellectual property rights holders in termsof protecting their rights against infringements. In order to cope with this problem,some regulatory effort is needed. Taking into account that intellectual property rightsis an international issue that goes beyond the national boundaries, both nationalregulators and international organizations should consider this problem and takenecessary steps to prevent the grievance of intellectual property rights holders.3. REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL BODIES’ APPROACHES TOCONVERGENCE„In a world where service provision increasingly crosses national boundaries, withthe appearance of worldwide operators offering integrated multimedia services, it isessential to ensure that the national regulatory approach fits with the developinginternational framework‟ (ITU:2002 p.5). As highlighted by ITU, convergence is an25
international phenomenon and at this point the views of international organisationsare important.This section briefly puts forth the views of ITU, OECD and EC regardingconvergence in terms of regulation.3.1. ITUConvergence is being handled by ITU since mid 1990‟s. Since that time, the topic ishandled in various study groups, forums, seminars, workshops and colloquiums.ITU‟s views regarding convergence which do not have a binding nature but ratherhave an advisory role are briefly explained in this section.It is stated by ITU that a revision of the nature and role of National RegulatoryAuthorities might be necessary and convergence will probably necessitate a singlecommunications regulator to regulate Telecommunications, Broadcasting andInformation Technology markets together.According to ITU, one out of three drivers that influence convergence is regulationbesides technology and market. Because of this, ITU tried to identify the bestregulatory framework to deal with convergenceITU draws attention that, definition of a new regulatory framework needs to take intoaccount the possible socioeconomic effects on the different regions since there arelarge discrepancies within different regions of the world. Also „the new regulationshould be as flexible as possible and quickly move towards a situation where specificex-ante regulation are applied only in case of lack of market self-regulation orcomplete market failure‟ (ITU:2002 p.5). ITU suggests that, since there is no morespectrum scarcity, broadcast regulation can be upgraded accordingly and the sectorcan be ruled only by the principles of competition law –excluding data privacy andintellectual property rights protection- and the content might be reviewed on themodel of free press. In addition to this, ITU states that alliances and joint ventures(horizontal integration) should be evaluated having regard to the fact that strong26
Page 5: ABBREVIATIONSCA: Competition Author
Page 8 and 9: aspects of convergence in the count
Page 10 and 11: framework in UK are put forth takin
Page 12 and 13: oundaries between industries by the
Page 14 and 15: p.40).Like Tarjanne, also Iosifidis
Page 16 and 17: and broadcasting sectors. The blurr
Page 23 and 24: Since end users can benefit from mo
Page 25: above. In order for them to enjoy t
Page 29 and 30: of platforms does not solve the cul
Page 31 and 32: egulatory approach than is necessar
Page 33 and 34: or merged them. This section analyz
Page 35 and 36: of a phone line to anyone on demand
Page 37 and 38: households with computers is 36.2%
Page 39 and 40: Turkish Radio Television Corporatio
Page 41 and 42: telecommunications services and inf
Page 43 and 44: competitive market in the country b
Page 45 and 46: egulated by a separate unit within
Page 47 and 48: StrengthsAs overlaps between curren
Page 49 and 50: telecommunications sector that is a
Page 51 and 52: accordance with Article 15(2) of Di
Page 53 and 54: the Media, Communication and Humani
Page 55: Regulators, in Bohlin, E., Brodin,

city university london school of social sciences convergence of ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?