The service sector is also explicitly related to the concept of the informa- tion economy. Chapters 3.1 and 5 represent the core of the work and deal with the processes affecting the development of services generally, in- formation services in particular, and the effect on information services of developments in telecommunications services. These chapters rely exten- sively on drawing together evidence from existing sources to analyse key determinants of service sector evolu- tion, and its spatial manifestations. Whilst presenting little original re- search, these chapters are invaluable in defining the current level of know-

TELECOMMUNICATIONS IN THE

Entering the time

POST-DIVESTITURE ERA

edited by Albert L. Danielsen and David Fi. Kamerschen

Lexington Books, Lexington, MA, 1986,241 pp, f 19.50

Since 19S1, the University of Georgia has held an Annual Public Utilities Conference, attracting electric, gas, and increasingly, telecommunications industry participants. Although never explicitly stated by its editors, 21 presentations were apparently selected from the first five of these conferences to constitute Telecom- municntions in the Post-Divestiture Era.

The book is divided into four parts: ‘The regulator’s perspective’, ‘The companies’ perspective’, ‘Pricing tele- communications in an asymmetrically regulated market’, and ‘Other issues in telecommunications’. Each pre- sentation is designated a chapter, and the chapters range from a three-and-a- half-page informal speech with neither footnotes nor a bibliography, to a 46-page scholarly work written by the editors, University of Georgia Profes- sors Albert Danielsen and David Kamerschen, with 77 headings and subheadings, 25 footnotes and 54 re- ferences. The great majority of the 24 authors and co-authors are based in

ledge concerning these issues. Chapter 6 outlines the policy position of the EC in relation to the service sector. The final chapter draws conclusions. of which probably the most interesting from the point of view of EC regional policy is ‘Above all information gen- eration and diffusion has a clear spa- tial dimension which favours large urban areas and core regions.’ This conclusion must lend greater signifi- cance to the EC’s STAR programme.

Gareth Thomas Peat Marwick McLintock

London. UK

the south-east of the USA, and most

warp

are from the telephone industry. Compilation of conference pre-

sentations, especially those encompas- sing several years, typically pose prob- lems for both editor and reader, and this book is no exception. Remarks designed for and delivered to a live audience may not be as effective when read in print. Thus, in their brief introductions, Danielsen and Kamers- then sometimes feel compelled to convey some of the flavour of the speech and personality of the speaker. For example, one presenter ‘discusses what he perceives as the agenda of unfinished business of the telecom- munications industry [ . . . ] with con- siderable detail, logic and emotion.’ In Chapter 3, former professional base- ball player and now Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Neilsen Cochran ‘is as serious about compet- ing vigorously to establish a viable communications system as he was on the baseball diamond.’

The editors note throughout the book that telecommunications and the telecommunications industry is in a period of rapid, ‘dramatic’ change. Consequently, dated material is in- evitable. Although the reader is alerted to this difficulty, the editors’ solutions are inconsistent. Dates are left untouched in many of the chap- ters, such as AT&T’s Lawrence We- ber’s (then latest available) 1983 fig-

TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY December 1988

ures of approximately $4 bn for com- peting carriers’ revenues. However. some editing has apparently been done to update some material in a given chapter. Thus United States Telephone Association executive Ward White, in a useful overview of ‘Divestiture and the local exchange

carrier’, says on page 91. that ‘since Jamwry I, 1956, the FCC requires an eight-year transition to a twenty-five percent gross allocator for interstate NTS costs’, but on page 95, he states the USTA ‘will be filing an onzictrs brief with the Supreme Court on the Louisiana case (the brief was filed in

19SS). In the previous chapter, Southern

Bell’s Frank Skinner emphasizes on page 84, that ‘The BOCs are approaching the end of year one of the new marketplace’ of divestiture (ie, presumably January 1955). but two paragraphs later he declares that by the end of 1985 Southern Bell had converted 70% of its access lines to equal access.

Random updating

The reader with historical knowledge will most likely be distracted by the seemingly random updating and, be- cause the chapter titles include no dates, one finds oneself attempting to guess when the presentations were actually made. The inconsistencies of dating are also bound to confuse a reader who is attempting to link sepa- rate historical events which may or may not have occurred in the sequ- ence suggested in the text.

A further inherent problem of com- piling conference presentations is re- dundancy. In this volume, themes keep coming up again and again. In Part II, for example, the first four of the six chapters concentrate on access charges and equal access, and the fifth chapter touches on these subjects.

As one would expect, the annual conference at the University of Geor- gia apparently resembles almost all other telephone related conferences these days in terms of the ample number of industry representatives present. The results are a volume that is not totally balanced in the positions which are advanced, particularly since

399

Book reviews

the presentations in ‘The regulator’s perspective’ (Part I) by three state commissioners total only 11 pages. No genuine contrasting view is presented to Frank Skinner’s claim in Chapter 8 that ‘In looking over a BOC’s monthly financial statements line by line, one would find it difficult to isolate any source of a BOC’s revenues that is not facing stiff competitive pressure’, or Frank Alessio’s (Criterion Incorpo- rated) later claim in Chapter 14 that (circa 1984 or 1985), ‘Most telecom- munications markets (particularly those that generate most of the re- venues) are contestable, increasingly rivalrous, and workably competitive.’ This is not to say these statements are invalid or inappropriate, but merely that, unlike in many legislative, reg- ulatory and judicial proceedings, they remain unchallenged.

Although incorporating numerous conference presentations into a ba- lanced, unified form is difficult, the uneveness of the chapter in length, depth and format is particularly appa- rent in this book. Assuming the pro- jected reader is in the telecommunica- tions area, as indicated in the preface, some of the material seems too basic to be included at all, and most certain- ly the placement of such material late in the volume must be questioned. A couple of examples are: Chapter 12 (p

99), Southern Bell’s Robert Burns tells us ‘the Federal Communications Commission has regulatory authority over all interstate communications. and state governments regulate intra- state services through public utility commissions’: Chapter 16 (p 130). Southern Bell’s Clinton Perkins, Jr, explains that telcos must know how much their services will cost and what they will sell for in the marketplace because ‘If we know the price and the cost, then we know whether or not the service will produce a profit or contri- bute to the financial viability of our enterprise’.

At the other end of the spectrum, the editors state in the Introduction to Part IV that ‘Although his chapter employs significantly more advanced quantitative methods than the other chapters in this part’, the contribution by Terrence Robinson (GTE) is ‘worth the reader’s greater effort’. Yet ‘greater effort’ may be insufficient for understanding and evaluating Robin- son’s economic value depreciation model, which incorporates as many as 13 variables in the ‘basic equation’.

However, to point out that the Robinson and several other more de- tailed chapters seem out of place in the context of this volume is not to imply that these lengthier and more scholarly contributions are not worth-

while reading. Quite the contrary. In fact, the roughly 100 pages written by one or both of the editors provide many of the new insights one gains from reading this book. Two of these are the 46-page chapter ‘A method- ological study of market power and market shares on intrastate, inter- LATA telecommunications’, and the final, 27-page chapter, ‘Assessing the feasibility of modeling the economic impacts associated with changing car- rier access and customer line charges: a generic study of the southern re- gion’.

There is no question that the Geor- gia Annual Public Utilities Confer- ences provide a genuine service to the field. But the editors may have de- pended too heavily on actual confer- ence presentations for the content and structure of this volume. Had they instead expanded upon the more empirical, in-depth, well-documented, less time-sensititve, better balanced contributions - including their own - the book would have avoided many of the problems outlined in this review, and would have been a more uniform- ly valuable contribution to the litera- ture.

Barry Cole Columbia University

New York and University of Pennsylvania USA

400 TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY December 1988