This course provides a comprehensive introduction to basic principles of telecommunications technology and the legal, economic, and regulatory environment of the telecommunications industry. Topics covered are: role of new technologies such as fiber, wireless, voice over packet, and broadband access; principles behind telecommunications regulation from common carrier law and natural monopoly to open access and interconnection; differences in the treatment of telecommunications versus information services. Also, mergers, antitrust, and the changing industrial structure of telecommunications; spectrum allocation and management; and international comparison of telecommunications regulations. Special emphasis on how the new technologies have altered and are altered by regulation.
