Liberalizing development : effects of telecommunication liberalization in Thailand and the Philippines

This thesis hypothesized that extensive telecommunications liberalization would not increase the penetration rate of the fixed telephone service better than other, less competition-oriented, policy alternatives. The hypothesis was validated in the case of Thailand and the Philippines. However, for the cellular mobile telephone and Internet services, extensive telecommunications liberalization could increase the penetration rates better than other, less competition-oriented, policy alternatives. Thus, the thesis demonstrates that past research has not paid sufficient attention to this issue and has assumed that the more extensive reform could lead to the faster and the better telecommunications development of all telecommunication services. The thesis suggested that less-developed countries (LDCs) should realize that they do not have to fully implement liberalization reforms, but should instead specifically tailor their telecommunications reform policies to their own pace and needs. This study found that extensive liberalization reforms or extensive opening of the market does not necessarily increase penetration rates of services better than other less competition-oriented policy alternatives under the following conditions: Assuming that the services have not yet reached their saturation levels based on the S-curve,

Department dc:contributor.department

Technology and Policy Program

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2001

Author dc:creator

• Krairit, Donyaprueth

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• David Clark.

• Technology, Management, and Policy Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/8658

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/8658