Editorial

Citation

Blackman, C. (2010), "Editorial", info, Vol. 12 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/info.2010.27212aaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: info, Volume 12, Issue 1

The global economy seems to be recovering from the shock to the system brought on by the financial crisis. A deep depression seems to have been averted owing to massive intervention to bale out the banking sector and support industries such automobiles. One of the lasting consequences of this episode may be that trust in market mechanisms in all sectors is brought into question. There seems to be a growing popular perception that if left to market forces, the outcome can never be fair. In a world where markets are left to operate without proper oversight, those who will benefit are the wealthy and those prepared to take the most risk.

This questioning of the economic orthodoxy of the past three decades has significant consequences for the telecommunications sector. No where else has the idea that “markets know best” been pursued quite so vigorously and with clearly beneficial results across the world. Liberalisation of markets, allowing new entrants to compete and offering choice to consumers has increased efficiency, lowered costs and improved services – and stimulated economic development. But the economic crisis seems to have given impetus to the notion that a more interventionist role for governments may be necessary and desirable in future. After all, if we can throw billions of pounds/dollars/euros of taxpayers money at bankers and smokestack industries, why shouldn’t we invest public money in something more worthwhile?

So, for instance, building next generation broadband infrastructure is increasingly seen as an area requiring government intervention. Governments rightly see high-speed networks as underpinning future economic development, as a necessary building block in the transition to a knowledge-based society. Incumbent operators of course are happy to share the risk but we must be careful not to repeat the mistakes of the past – governments generally speaking are not very good at “picking winners”.

We can view some of the articles included in this issue of info through this lens. For instance, Rajen Akalu asks why have there been so few spectrum trades in the UK. A key element in the reform of traditional spectrum allocation methods is the existence of a thriving secondary market, but there are few signs of this happening in the UK yet. It may be that the primary market is still able to satisfy new entrants, or that the current allocation is correct, or it just may be too soon to tell. Or could it be that a secondary spectrum trading market is a step too far?

Korea’s government, of course, has shown itself very willing intervene in terms of industrial policy to support its domestic ICT sector. Another example is described in Ji-Eun Lee and Minsoo Shun’s article on “The role of public services in the convergence era: IPTV case”. Here the Korean government is seeking to use IPTV as an engine for growth for the Korean economy. This is partly because the IPTV industry forms a complex value chain that consists of content, networks, terminals and platforms, and so the expansion of IPTV services is likely to promote growth in related areas such as TV, STB, digital content, platforms and network infrastructures.

Meanwhile, Jamie Anderson considers the roll out of mobile banking in developing countries, a development that surely has the potential for enormous social and economic benefit by bringing banking and financial services to many millions of people. However, it is highly likely that, without regulatory intervention, the result will be monopoly control of M-banking platforms with spillover effects. Here it is clear that regulators must ensure that they monitor the developing market and take action as necessary.

And finally, one area highlighted in this issue is the need for a more coherent intervention by governments in the realm of cybersecurity. With the merging of commercial mobile services and the public internet, Rutkowski questions the security and robustness of our increasingly critical infrastructure. Drawing an analogy with the sinking of the Titanic, which led directly to the US signing the 1906 Berlin Convention, he wonders whether it will take a similar catastrophe for governments to wake up to the need for much greater coordination and control over network infrastructure. This latter topic will be explored in greater depth in a forthcoming special issue.

Colin BlackmanEditor of info and an independent consultant