The Telecommunuications Industry: Questions of State, Politics and Labour

Abstract

The telecommunications industry has undergone massive change over the last two decades, raising questions about ownership, state intervention, technological change and future patterns of work. Historically, tele communications companies have been part of the service sector, usually state-owned, and a highly regulated part of the modernising project of the twentieth century. However, beginning in the late 1970s with the elabora tion of the neo-liberal political project, telecommunications companies became the object of government attention. They were subject to state re regulation, as the industry internationalised, and patterns of work organisation began to change. As a consequence of this process of change, it is no longer clear where the boundaries of the industry lie, as telephony and related services become part of a broad-based computing, inform ation and telecommunications industry (CIT). At the end of the twentieth century, CIT symbolises the advent of the service and consumer society, replacing the emblematic place of the automobile industry in mass production society. Technological change has been dramatic in the telecommunications industry. While there have been extensive developments in telephony over the last few decades, the decisive shift occurred in the late 1980s with the advent of digital telecommunication systems. These developments allow the transfer of information in both voice form and pictures. Such developments permit the integration of telephony, computers and related media forms. To the extent that this technology is introduced and deployed then the traditional notion of a telecommunications industry broadly confined to telephony is obsolete; hence the sense in redefining