, because deregulation transformed telecommunications into a competitive industry, wherein government is a minimal player.
In most other countries, telecommunications services were provided by a governmental organization. When the privatization of telecommunications services occurred in some of these countries, thus, the action more clearly represented the privatization of a nationalized industry than was true of the deregulation of telecommunications services in the United States. Telecommunications privatization was accomplished in a variety of forms in those countries where it occurred.
The stated fundamental objective of telecommunications deregulation in the United States was a simple one: to permit the telecommunications industry to operate, as far as possible, under free market conditions (Hemming, 1988, p. 26). There is little doubt that this was a true objective for both the Carter Administration and the Reagan Administration. It was not, however, the only objective. The Carter Administration was more conservative than the Reagan Administration in its approach to federal budget deficits. The Carter Administration wanted an end to federal exposure to support industry, and that Administration wanted to lower prices to consumers through increased competition. The deregulation of the telecommunications industry was just one facet of a larger deregulation effort that included long distance truck hauling, banking, telecommunications, and airlines. In the area of deregulation, the Reagan Administration merely continued what the Carter Administration had started.
The American model for deregulation, and privatization through deregulation, had three facets. First, it was consumer oriented. There was a genuine desire to lower consumer costs, and increase consumer choices through deregulation. Second, in an era of fiscal constraints, government wanted to reduce its exposure to the support of industrial activity...