Telecommunications: Can trade agreements keep up with technology?

Since 1997, when the WTO negotiations on basic telecommunications concluded, the market for telecommunications has witnessed an enormous transformation. The sector has evolved from one in which government monopolies supplied the services, usually over landlines, to one in which the vast majority of governments have sold some or all of their ownership interests and introduced competition. During this same period mobile phones, which now comprise close to 70 percent of all telephones in use globally, have overtaken fixed-line services in nearly all countries. Over the past decade the internet has evolved from a largely experimental technology to a full-fledged commercial service that is an integral part of the business world, of consumers’ lives, and of the global economy. Internet technology might well form the backbone for the communications industry in the near future – the so-called next-generation networks (NGNs).