Proceedings

investment in infrastructure, once invested the amount can not be recovered by
assigning new destinations assets.
A widely discussed topic in the telecommunications literature is representing by the
role of regulation in industry development (Beardsley and Farrell, 2005; Michalis,
2001). Arguments have been both in favor of an active role played by the authorities
in protecting consumers' interests (Beardsley and Farrell, 2005; Haring and Rohlfs,
1997) and against excessive regulation (Haring and Rohlfs, 1997). This makes it
extremely difficult for any regulator to find a balance between various interests, often
conflicting, of those involved.
Beardsley and Farrell (2005) described the role of regulation as follows: "The purpose
of economic regulation should be the same in all sectors: to facilitate fair competition,
or, where there is a natural monopoly, to ensure proper pricing and a high level of
services quality. A real competition is a strong growth of the sector, which in turn will
generate a faster economic growth and benefits for all." Certainly, this goal is so
noble, but the practice has shown that authorities from everywhere are trying hard to
get a set of rules, neutral and convenient for all.
Although the regulation is not a recent issue, it raises a particular interest during the
last few years. An explanation of this fact could be that the need for regulation is
correlated with industry maturity (Vesa et al., 2005), in all respects.
In our opinion, a fully liberalized telecommunications market, without any
intervention by regulatory authorities, it is hard to imagine, if not impossible. As long
as these services are publicly available, user interests must be protected. Of course,
any excessive regulation is not desirable; it can restrict operators’ rights and limit the
competition.
The problem of regulation does not finish with the liberalization and privatization, of
at least two reasons (Hills, 1986):
• where monopolies have operated for a long time, the market share of main
operator is dominant, even if the competition has been opened;
• even after liberalization, if the market entry is easy, major operators require a
certain protection to allow them to recover the costs invested in infrastructure.
The regulation was designed to create benefits for consumers, so they can benefit
from telecom services at lower prices than those charged by a firm in monopoly. The
problem is that among the consumers could not be identified a common interest
(Hills, 1986), because service users are of different categories and their interests
differ. On long run, their common interest is to reduce expenses regarding network
access, but on short term no category of users is willing to bear additional costs in
order to benefit from universal service.
We believe that regulation of a complex and dynamic field, such telecommunications,
is an extremely delicate matter, for several reasons:
• First, it must be impartial, even if governments still have a higher or lower part
of incumbent operators shares, former monopolists;
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