scholarly journals Regulation, Competition and Rural Telephone Companies

Author(s):  
Kent A. Currie
Keyword(s):  
1991 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey E. Cohen

Between 1876 and 1917, government philosophy toward telephone regulation began moving away from laissez-faire and toward some kind of involvement in economic affairs. However, while some early studies of regulation suggest business hostility to that policy, AT&T actively sought regulation, jogging government and the public in that direction. But this study is not just a restatement of the interest-group-capture theory, as offered by such economists as Stigler or historians as Kolko. Regulation resulted from the convergence of interests of many affected players, including residential and business telephone subscribers, the independent telephone companies that competed with AT&T, and the state and federal governments, as well as AT&T. I employ a multiple interest theory to account for telephone regulation, but unlike other studies using such a framework, I suggest that government is an independent actor with impact on the final policy outcome, and not merely an arena where private interests battle for control over policy outcomes, as is so common among other multiple interest studies of regulation.


1997 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Rosner ◽  
Gerald Markowitz

In the summer of 1989, an extended strike by the various “Baby Bell” telephone companies, including those of New York, Massachusetts, California, and thirteen other states in the Northeast, Midwest, and West Coast, brought to public attention the importance of health and hospital insurance to the nation's workers. In what theLos Angeles Timesheadline proclaimed was a “Phone Strike Centered on the Issue of Health Care,” workers at NYNEX, Pacific Bell, and Bell Atlantic went out on strike over management's insistence that the unions pay a greater portion of their hospital insurance premiums. In contrast to their willingness to grant wage concessions throughout most of the 1980s, the unions and their membership struck to protect what was once considered a “fringe” benefit of union membership. What had been a trivial cost to companies in the 1940s and 1950s had risen to 7.9 percent of payroll in 1984 and 13.6 percent by 1989. Unable to control the industry that had formed around hospitals, doctors, drug companies, and insurance, portions of the labor movement redefined its central mission: the fringes of the previous forty years were now central concerns. In the words of one local president engaged in the bitter communication workers strike: “‘It took us 40 years of collective bargaining’ to reach a contract in which the employer contributed [substantially to] the costs of health care, ‘and now they want to go in one fell swoop backward.’”


2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Britt Foget Johansen ◽  
Winni Johansen ◽  
Nina M. Weckesser

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the Telenor customer complaints crisis triggered on the company Facebook site in August 2012. More specifically, the paper focusses on how friends and enemies of a company interact, and how faith-holders serve as crisis communicators in a rhetorical sub-arena that opens up on Facebook. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on a textual analysis of 4,368 posts from the Telenor Facebook site, and an interview with the senior digital manager of Telenor. Findings – Not only current and previous customers but also those from rival telephone companies were active in the Facebook sub-arena. The customers complaining about the company services were met not only with the response of Telenor, but also with counter-attacks from faith-holders acting in defense of Telenor. However, these faith-holders were using defensive response strategies, while Telenor used accommodative strategies. Research limitations/implications – Organizational crises need to be seen as a complex set of communication processes, including the many voices that start communicating from different positions, and taking into account not only the response strategies of the organization but also the response strategies applied by supportive emotional stakeholders. In practice, faith-holders need to be monitored, as they may prove useful as “crisis communicators.” Originality/value – The paper provides insights into an under-investigated area of crisis communication: the strategies of faith-holders acting as “crisis communicators” defending a company and themselves against attacks from negative voices on social media.


Author(s):  
P. Reijonen ◽  
J. Heikkila

The object of this case study is a marketing and sales information system in two local offices of a regional telephone company. A unified, advanced client/server system was needed due to the merging of three companies into a bigger regional company, keener competition, and the growing complexity of the services provided. The system is tailormade to meet the needs of the industry and it was developed by a software vendor in close cooperation with the nationwide alliance of regional telephone companies. This study illustrates the difficulties in simultaneously aligning an organization and implementing a new information system. Views on the skills and competence needed in using the system vary, and lead to the negligence of education and training. The consequent lack of skills and knowledge of some users, especially of those not using the system regularly, create profound problems in the whole work process and in productivity as the first, obvious work practices become the dominant mode of operation bypassing the desired integrated workflow. The findings are discussed and reflected to concepts of institutionalization, positive reinforcement, and productivity paradox. This case emphasizes the importance of the organizational implementation and adaptation process which ought to begin after the implementation of the technical system.


Author(s):  
Mahesh S. Raisinghani ◽  
Hassan Ghanem

Subscribers had never thought of cable operators as providers of voice services, or telephone companies as providers of television and entertainment services. However, the strategies of multiple system operators (MSOs) and telecommunication companies (telcos) are changing, and they are expanding their services into each other’s territory. The competition between the MSOs and the telcos is just brewing up.


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