the long-run diffusion and techno-economic performance of national telephone networks: a case study...

*Corresponding author. Tel.: 353-1-704-5478.E-mail address: [email protected] (P. Preston)

Telecommunications Policy 23 (1999) 437}457

The long-run di!usion and techno-economic performanceof national telephone networks: a case study of Ireland,

1922}1998

Roderick Flynn, Paschal Preston*

COMTEC, Dublin City University, Glasnevin, Dublin 9, Ireland

Abstract

The telephone is one of the most widely used technologies in the advanced industrial economies, typicallyachieving a household penetration rate in excess of 90%. Over the course of this century, the plain oldtelephone system (POTS) has become a critical techno-social infrastructure for all sorts of economic, socialand personal interactions. The question arises as to what has driven the widespread di!usion of thetelephone? How can we describe the adoption of telephony as a core element in economic and social a!airs inmodern societies? In particular, how can we account for the great disparities in the rate and pace of thedi!usion patterns of POTS, taking account of di!erent national and historical contexts? This paper criticallyinterrogates in#uential universal models or &theory-led' explanations of the di!usion of telephone systems,especially their capacity to account for the empirically observable national variations. The authors test thesemodels with respect to the historical trajectory of telecommunications development in Ireland, drawing onunique time-series data related to the actual patterns of telephone adoption, use and utility. The authors alsore-assess the extent to which existing di!usion models throw some light on aspects of observable di!usionprocesses and patterns. A key conclusion from the approach adopted here is that in themselves, abstractdeductive models are at best unsatisfactory. Whilst a combination of such &universal' factors derived frommore deductive models may be useful in elucidating di!erent parts of the story, they are not su$cientlynuanced or adequate to describe or frame the complex stories of di!erent national historical experiences.With the Irish case study we have attempted to illustrate the value of a historical and empirically basedunderstanding of the socio-economic, political or institutional factors which have served to shape thedevelopment of telecommunications services and policy in Ireland. ( 1999 Published by Elsevier ScienceLtd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Ireland; Network development; Di!usion patterns

0308-5961/99/$ - see front matter ( 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.PII: S 0 3 0 8 - 5 9 6 1 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 2 3 - 3

1. Introduction

The telephone is one of the most widely used technologies in the advanced industrial economies,typically achieving a household penetration rate in excess of 90%. Over the course of this century,the plain old telephone system (POTS) has become a critical techno-social infrastructure for allsorts of economic, social and personal interactions. For business users, access to and use oftelephony has for long been an essential tool for all kinds of exchanges and transactions withinevery industrial sector. Similarly household users can no longer consider access to POTS asa matter of discretionary expenditure* as part of the prevailing consumption norms the telephoneis an essential tool for e!ective participation in these societies (Preston & Flynn, 1999).

The question arises as to what has driven the widespread di!usion of the telephone? How can wedescribe the adoption of telephony as a core element in economic and social a!airs in modernsocieties? In particular, how can we account for the great disparities in the rate and pace of thedi!usion patterns of POTS, taking account of di!erent national and historical contexts?

Clearly, the answers to these questions are of great interest to telecommunications policymakersseeking both to understand how future telecommunications technologies and services might di!useand to "nd what kind of policy initiatives might aid that process. However, answers to thesequestions often take the shape of generalised deductive models inferring particular instances fromgeneral social policy goals or technico-economic &laws'. Thus both the pursuit of &universal service'goals and/or the introduction of competition into telecommunications markets have been ad-vanced as adequate explanations of the di!usion of the telephone. Other approaches point togeneral models of techno-economic change (e.g. rapid reductions in cost/performance ratios perelectronic function) and/or the assumed universal dynamics of technological di!usion processes.What all these models have in common, however, is that they are rarely based on an extensive anddetailed analysis of empirical evidence relating to the telephone system.

Admittedly, it does not necessarily follow that such models are problematic. However, recentresearch carried out by the authors on the historical di!usion of the telephone system in Ireland hasgiven us pause for thought. Much like their counterparts elsewhere, Irish telecom service providersand policymakers in recent decades have pointed to the pursuit of &universal service' policies asa key factor explaining the telephone's increasing di!usion in Ireland. By aggregating the cost oftelephone service provision to high- and low-cost customers, such policies are held to have broughtthe telephone within the reach of those customers for whom the real cost of service would havebeen prohibitively expensive. Yet whilst this may have contributed to the development of thetelephone in Ireland, it is not an adequate or singular explanation. Crucially, research into theactual historical practices of the Irish PTT and policy making reveals an almost total absence ofexplicit policy attention to universal service policy objectives until very recent years. Hence onemust look elsewhere to properly understand or explain the di!usion and adoption of the telephonein Ireland.

It is our contention that the existing universal models or &theory-led' explanations for thedi!usion of telephone systems are insu$cient to account for the empirically observable nationalvariations. By contrast, this paper seeks to describe the long-run historical trajectory of Irishtelecommunications development on the basis of time series data describing actual patterns oftelephone adoption, use and utility. At the same time, however, we wish to assess the extent towhich abstract di!usion models can throw some light on actual di!usion patterns.

438 R. Flynn, P. Preston / Telecommunications Policy 23 (1999) 437}457

In short, we would like to position this article as a somewhat tentative and pioneering attempt toassociate theoretical models of di!usion processes with empirical data in a manner that is attentiveto the role of social and institutional factors in shaping the &trajectory' of di!usion. A key aim hereis to bridge some of the gaps in the existing body of knowledge about the long-run performance,adoption and di!usion of telecommunications systems. In carrying out this exercise we are notsimply seeking to describe the di!usion of the telephone system in one relatively small and &late'industrialising nation. Rather, we wish to stimulate some discussion and debate about appropriatemethodologies and to encourage others to undertake similar studies based on the (frequently quitedi!erent) trajectories of telecommunications developments which have emerged in the particularsocio-economic and institutional historical contexts of other countries. It is our hope that this willcontribute to the development of a new &meso-level knowledge' from which telecommunicationspolicy makers can draw with a view to constructing better-informed policy decisions.

2. A brief look at technology and di4usion theories

Before moving to consider the actual di!usion of the Irish telephone system we must "rstconsider the range of possible models which purport to explain such di!usion. An exhaustivesurvey is beyond the scope of this paper but we will nonetheless consider several models whichrepresent the range of possible approaches to the question and which when used in conjunctionwith one another may o!er, at least on paper, a plausible general model for telecommunicationsdi!usion.

Since we are considering the di!usion of the telephone it seems useful to start with one of themost in#uential generic models of the di!usion process, that advanced by Rogers in The Diwusion ofInnovations, "rst published in 1962 and now in its fourth edition. Since its "rst publication, themodel has been the subject of heated debate, not least within the interdisciplinary "elds concernedwith communication and (socio-economic) development where it was criticised for failing to takeaccount of speci"c institutional contexts and social and political power structures. Thus for somecritics, Rogers' model was #awed by universalist assumptions (or implicit prescriptions) thatinnovations di!use within a context marked by an autonomous or free market and that di!usion isdriven by the demands of individual consumers freely exercising their market power. In latereditions of the book (and in other work), Rogers has subsequently advanced many re"nements tohis model, seeking to place greater stress on the interactive nature of the communication anddi!usion process in the third edition, and paying more explicit attention to the notion ofnetworking in the latest edition. But for many critics in the communications "eld, these adjust-ments have not adequately addressed the fundamental theoretical #aws or the assumptionsunderpinning the model (Mattelart & Mattelart, 1998). Despite such academic criticisms, however,Rogers' model remains in#uential in the present political and policy context and represents aninitial framework within which we can begin to analyse the factors driving di!usion.

For Rogers, di!usion can be described as &the process by which an innovation is communicatedthrough certain channels over time among the members of a social system' (Rogers, 1983). Heproposes a basic s-shaped di!usion curve which he suggests can be applied to any di!usion. Thiscurve echoes in virtually all respects the Product Life Cycle curve used in marketing circles. Bothcurves posit that in its introductory phase, an innovation/new product initially di!uses slowly as

R. Flynn, P. Preston / Telecommunications Policy 23 (1999) 437}457 439

1One early e!ort in this direction was that of Sir, Mumford, 1963.

early adopters begin to purchase it. This is followed by a growth or take-o! phase as early adoptersbegin to convince others of the product's value. The third phase is the maturity phase or lateadopter's phase where the product reaches and plateaus at its life cycle peak sales. Finally, theproduct enters a phase of decline as the market is saturated.

For the purposes of this paper, this aspect of Rogers' model is particularly relevant. One of hiskey questions centres around the factors which prompt the take-o! and subsequent stages in thes-shaped di!usion curve. Rogers argues that the individual goes through a "ve-stage innovation-decision process in deciding to acquire a new product or service:

1. Knowledge: Either of the innovation itself or of the need for something that can solve a particularproblem/satiate a need.

2. Persuasion: The stage at which the individual forms a favourable or unfavourable attitudetowards the innovation.

3. Decision: The stage at which the individual engages in activities that lead to a choice to adopt orreject the innovation.

4. Implementation: The putting into practice of the decision stage* actually putting an innovationto use.

5. Conxrmation Stage: The individual seeks reinforcement for the innovation decision alreadymade.

If we accept the inherent logic of Rogers' model * that di!usion is driven by the freely madechoices of individual consumers* then it would be logical to include a basic supply and demandmodel to inform our understanding of telephone di!usion. Understanding demand for telephoneservices is slightly unusual, however. With most commodities, demand measures only new pur-chases of these commodities. However as an ongoing service, telephone demand measures not justnew subscribers but also those subscribers who have decided to remain connected to the networkover a period of time. In short, access to the telephone is not the result of a one-o! purchasingdecision but demands an ongoing commitment. In e!ect then, as long as the overall number ofsubscribers to a given network is increasing then, we can also state that overall demand isincreasing. But how do we explain the consistent increase in demand associated with everytelephone system these authors are familiar with (i.e., that fact that every national telephone systemhas got bigger over time)? The basic supply and demand model o!ers the straightforward answerthat demand increases as prices decrease. Thus, it may become possible to suggest that thetrajectory of any telephone system's adoption is critically dependent on falling costs.

But what causes costs to fall? One can simply point to the operation of increasing economies ofscale due to an increase in the size of the network. However, it might also be the case that the cost oftelephony has been reduced as a result of ongoing technical innovation. In the "eld of computing, ithas been commonplace to assert that di!usion is driven by the remarkable and sustained series offalls in cost per electronic function (Moore's law) (Freeman, 1994; Freeman & Soete, 1994). It hasbeen less common, however, to "nd these kinds of techno-economic arguments applied totelecommunications.1 With the widespread introduction of digital telecommunications switchingfrom the 1970s there has been a greater technical convergence between telecommunications and


Fig. 1. Noam's Model. Source: Noam (1994). &Beyond liberalisation III: Reforming universal service'. TelecommunicationsPolicy, 18(9), pp. 687}704 (December 1994).

computing "elds as both depend heavily on the rapid advances in microelectronics technology. Yetif a similar pattern were evident in the telecommunications industry * falling cost per function* it could go some distance towards explaining the historical patterns of adoption and demandpatterns for the telephone and thus its pattern of di!usion. Here, we must be mindful of the paucityof productivity studies in this "eld and Melody's point that &there is ample room for legitimatedebate on both the theory and measurement of productivity, let alone the attribution of the causesof productivity improvements' (Melody, 1997). But, at the outset, we would #ag our own view thatthe rapid falls in cost-per-electronic-function (productivity) gains achieved in core microelectronics(as measured in the laboratory setting) are highly signi"cant in economic terms (Hall & Preston,1988). Yet such gains are unlikely to be replicated when these same technologies are applied to themuch more complex industrial or institutional settings of telecommunications facilities andnetworks (or indeed, of computer operation systems or applications programmes).

Were we to focus exclusively on the above-mentioned di!usion models in our critique, however,we could reasonably be accused of having set up a straw man, since neither adequately addressa critical aspect of any telephone system * that it is an interactive medium, a fact which hassigni"cant implications for understanding its di!usion. As an interactive medium, the usefulness ofany single connection depends on the prior existence of other subscribers. This point is made clearif one considers the folly of being the only owner of a telephone set. Clearly, the greater the numberof subscribers connected to the telephone system at any given point, the greater its utility and thusthe more attractive joining that network will be to any prospective subscribers. Eli Noam, amongstothers, has thus proposed a model that attempts to explain telephone network di!usion in terms ofthe relationship between the cost of telephone access and the utility of the telephone network(measured in subscriber numbers) (Noam, 1994).

Noam's model suggests that initially high average cost decline rapidly as more subscribers jointhe system (i.e. as the utility increases) (Fig. 1). This fall in costs continues until the system has


expanded to a stage whereby new subscribers can only be added by accepting an increasing averagecost. Meanwhile, utility (measured by Noam in terms of subscriber numbers: &the more people canbe reached, the more useful is the network'), increases dramatically at "rst followed by a reductionin the rate of increase as the number of new subscribers begins to tail o! when the telephone systementers its mature stage. In e!ect then, for at least part of his model, Noam proposes that fallingaverage cost (measured presumably in terms of the basic cost of system entry * i.e. rental cost),leads to an increase in subscriber numbers. Yet at the same time, because the telephone network isan interactive system, the increase in subscriber numbers also increases the utility of the system asa whole, generating a further increase in subscriber numbers.

The need for a "nal re"nement to any generic understanding of telecom di!usion is adverted toin Noam's model by his reference to a critical mass stage (where a falling cost curve and risingutility curve intersect). Models such as that of Noam's assume that the utility of any interactivesystem is in#uenced by the number of system users. Thus as M. Lynne Markus points out, theindividual considering the adoption of an available interactive medium is &very likely to choose notto use it, unless a sizeable number of his or her communication partners are already using it'(Markus, 1987). In short every potential subscriber must feel that the system is su$cientlydeveloped, that it has passed a certain size threshold, before they will consider it su$ciently usefulto join. This threshold is called the critical mass, the point after which di!usion will not merelyaccelerate but become self-sustaining. Critical mass theory asks two key questions: (i) what level ofdi!usion must occur before the bulk of a given population is su$ciently convinced of the need fora telephone (i.e. to allow di!usion to &take-o!')?; and (ii) how can any interactive network bedeveloped so as to reach the critical mass threshold?

The second question is particularly critical for, as Markus points out, early users of an interactivemedium experience low bene"ts and high costs relative to those potentially obtainable (LynneMarkus, 1987, p. 494). As a consequence there is a real risk that an interactive network maynever develop to its critical mass point. Indeed Markus makes the proposition that there are &onlytwo stable states of interactive medium usage in a community: all or nothing' (Markus, 1987,p. 500).

Markus goes on, however, to suggest several characteristics that may increase the likelihood ofany given interactive medium's achieving universal access, several of which the telephone clearlyexempli"es. These include factors that make the medium user friendly such as the presence of anactive message noti"cation capability (i.e. the fact that the telephone rings) or a straightforwarduser interface (the telephone dial or button set). Markus also asserts that critical mass theory holdsthat universal access will be favoured by a heterogeneity of resources and interests on the part ofusers. Diversity of resources might include the fact that some individuals in the community aremore sought after by others as communication partners. Thus, if such individuals becometelephone users they draw others into the network. Similarly, some individuals stand to realisegreater bene"ts from being part of a communications network than others* those who activelyseek and consume information clearly stand to derive greater bene"ts from a communicationsnetwork than those who do not. Finally, physical inaccessibility on the part of an individualwill also encourage sustained use of an interactive medium. As a consequence for these categoriesof users (amongst others) it may be worth the relatively high cost of becoming connected whilstthe network is still at an immature stage of development. (Indeed with regard to the in#uenceof geographical isolation, Markus makes the point that if such a description "ts an entire


2A third possibility would have been to consider the geographical expansion of the service from urban to rural areas.However, we have decided not to pursue this for the following reasons: (a) the available data is patchy in this regard, (b)much of the basic expansion of the network occurred before 1922, the start of our period and (c) measures of geographicalexpansion do not lend themselves to comparisons with more general socio-economic indicators.

community, then there is an incentive for that whole community to become part of the network.)This may gradually lead the network to develop to such a point where a critical mass point isreached.

Insofar as they suggest some key factors in#uencing the di!usion of innovations and telecommu-nications networks, respectively, the various models introduced above o!er at least an initialframework for understanding the historical or empirical patterns of development of the Irishtelephone system. In Section 3 below we attempt to model the development of the Irish telephonesystem along the lines suggested by these models. Rogers' s-shaped curve will be measured in termsof subscriber numbers. The same "gure will be used to measure Noam's notion of utility, althoughto o!er a more comprehensive picture, we will also look at the growth in overall call tra$c andcalls per average subscriber. The impact of Moore's law will be assessed via a series of measures:rental cost, local and trunk call cost, and aggregate per call cost.

Measures such as &number of calls per line' will be used to indicate both how per line/call costsdeclined in real terms and the extent to which the expansion of the telephone network increased itsutility to individual subscribers. Taking this together with data on the cost of telephony relative towages will allow us to examine the extent to which the cost-per-function of the telephone changedover time. The consumer price index (and/or in#ation data) will be used to keep prices constant toallow a proper historical comparison.

In addition, however, we will also consider some supply-side factors that are generally sidelinedby the models above, calculating the annual running costs of the system in relation to the numberof subscribers. Furthermore, we will consider the extent to which investment in developing thesystem was a precondition for permitting individual consumers to exercise their free will asconsumers. Finally, we will consider the extent to which one can identify signi"cant &critical mass'points, over the last eight decades of Irish telecommunications di!usion. When do these pointsoccur and are they caused by internal systems e!ects (i.e. simply reaching a certain level oftelephone penetration) or are less universal and more locally speci"c social and institutionalin#uences at work?

3. Empirical data from the Irish case study

As noted above we have taken as our basic indicators of telephone development, "gures forsubscriber number growth and call tra$c growth.2 In Section 3.1 immediately below, we outlinethe key trends indicated by these time series to illustrate the general development of the Irishtelephone system over the period under review. These initial descriptions of the historical di!usionand adoption trends will function as the context for understanding the impact of changes in thevarious other data time series that follow.


Fig. 2. Telephone development 1922}1997 basic indicators. Source: Flynn (1998). &The development of universaltelephone service in Ireland, 1880}1993' (Unpublished, Phd. Thesis).

3.1. Overall telephone development 1922}1997: key indicators

One of the di$culties in applying Rogers' s-curve describing the di!usion of innovations toa real-world situation is that the model assumes a product or innovation which has completed itslife cycle and that it is also relatively straightforward to state where the take-o! period is situated.The same is not true when it comes to the actual historical development and di!usion of thetelephone system in any particular society such as Ireland. Here we can only speculate as to when(if ever) the system will have run its lifetime course. Nonetheless, taking the period from 1922 to1997 as representing the system's lifetime, the second half of the 1940s shows a &take-o!' insubscriber numbers (Fig. 2). It is less straightforward to state where the take-o! peters out.Although our data depicts the late 1950s as a period of relatively slow growth, it is possible toidentify several subsequent periods * the mid-1960s, early 1970s and early 1980s * as &take-o!'periods in the sense suggested by models such as that of Rogers. Furthermore, one should note thatthe curve does not quite capture actual demand since the second half of the 1940s saw theemergence of a waiting list that would continue to increase in size until 1980 when it peaked ataround 100,000 applicants. Related to this, from the mid-1960s onwards the Department of Postsand Telegraphs deliberately moved to dampen demand by requiring seven years rental in advancefrom prospective subscribers. In short, had the Department of Posts and Telegraphs been able orwilling to match demand throughout this period it is likely that the telephone subscriber curveabove would clearly exhibit a far more de"nitive take-o! point in the 1940s.


Moving to secondary indicators of system development, we have sought to calculate call tra$cgrowth since 1922 (although in the absence of consistent time series data for international calltra$c, we have done so on the basis of total local and trunk calls). On this basis, the annual rate oftra$c growth remains relatively slow until the mid-1970s at which point the rate of increase speedsup dramatically, going from just over half a billion calls per annum in 1975 to over six billion by1996. On its own, this "gure has little meaning since the increase may simply be a function ofincreased subscriber numbers. A more useful indicator of the increasing utility of the system may bederived by examining the average number of calls per subscriber. This yields surprising results.Despite a consistent increase in subscriber numbers from 1922 to 1976 (from 12,000 to 360,000), thesame period sees relatively little change in the calls per subscriber "gure. Indeed the 1920s actuallysees this "gure decline and it is 1933/1934 before the 1922/1923 "gure is surpassed. The one peak inthis period occurs during the war years. Once this wartime crisis period passed, however, thenumber of calls per subscriber fell o! and it was not until the mid-1970s that the wartime peak wasreached again. However, in contrast to the 1940s, the period from 1976 to 1996 has seen the numberof calls made per subscriber consistently increase from 1500 to 4500. Clearly, something ratherdramatic was happening in the mid 1970s.

It is interesting to note that the increase in subscriber numbers beginning in the immediatepost-war period does not immediately lead to a concomitant increase in calls per subscriber*which only follows some 20}25 years later. This substantial lag e!ect seems to throw some doubton any assertion that subscriber numbers can be used as a straightforward measure of systemutility. Logically this would only be true if there was a consistent correlation between the increasein subscriber numbers and an increase in call tra$c growth. The actual behaviour of Irishsubscribers up to 1975 appears to confound this model, however, since calls per subscriberremained remarkably "xed until the mid-1970s. In consequence the Irish case study appears torefute any suggestion of technology-driven &system e!ects', i.e. that the development of thesubscriber numbers of itself axiomatically leads to a change in the behaviour of individualsubscribers. We will consider alternative explanations for the subscriber number/call tra$c lag inthe closing sections.

3.2. Factors pertaining to the development of the telephone system

Having looked at the overall development of the telephone system in Ireland between 1922 and1997, we can seek to understand that development via two basic sets of factors: pressures from thedemand side (i.e. consumer driven growth) and from the supply side (i.e. PTO driven growth).Clearly, it is somewhat arti"cial to entirely separate the two as the actions of one must in#uence theother. Nonetheless, for the sake of expositional clarity we have treated the two separately,considering the impact of cost factors on demand and of PTO-lead investment on the supply oftelephone infrastructure.

3.2.1. Demand sideCost to the subscriber of telephone subscription: How has the cost of telephony to the consumer

changed over the period under review? This research has taken three basic measures to answer thisquestion: (1) the cost of telephone rental, (2) the cost of a 3 minute local call, and (3) the cost ofa 3 minute trunk call over a distance of 7.5}10 miles (equal to 12}16 km) and known as the &A' rate


Fig. 3. Cost to subscriber of telephone subscription 1922}1997 (base year"1923). Source: Flynn (1998). &The develop-ment of universal telephone service in Ireland, 1880}1993' (Unpublished, Phd. Thesis).

3By choosing a 3 minute call, we have chosen the cheapest possible local call price at peak hours. However, since calltiming was only introduced to Ireland in the early 1990s, it should be noted that previously a 60 minute local call wouldhave cost the same as a 3 minute call. Consequently, had we chosen a longer time period such as 9 minute we would seean increase in local call costs since the early 1990s. Indeed a 9 minute local call in 1997 would cost 50% more in constantmoney terms than it did in 1922/1923).

in the 1990s. Each of these data sets was adjusted for in#ation by applying the base year 1914Consumer Price Index. As a consequence the "gures provided are all expressed in constant 1923values. Having arrived at a single "gure for a typical call, the change in the cost of telephony to thesubscriber is then related to changes in wage rates to give a more accurate picture of the relativecost of telephony over the period under review (see Fig. 3).

Adjusted for in#ation, rental has dropped roughly 40% since 1922/23. From C7.5 in that year, ithas dropped to C4.08 in 1997. Overall, however, the cost curve exhibits a falling curve followed bya rise from the mid-1950s onwards. The 1950s themselves exhibit the lowest point of the curvefalling as low as C2.42 in 1952/1953. After 1950 the curve rises to a smaller peak in the late1960s/mid-1970s before falling shallowly into the late 1990s. (Note we have taken the residentialrental charge throughout.) Adjusted for in#ation, local call costs have also fallen substantially overthe last 70 years. From 0.625 new pence in 1922/1923, the cost of a 3-minute call fell to 0.323 penceby 1997. Again the cost curve does not exhibit a constant decline, however. The cheapest period forlocal calls was during the 1940s when prices fell as low as 0.231p (1950/1951). Since the late 1950s,however, the price has remained relatively stable with the exception of two brief periods in the late1960s and mid 1980s when the price went just over 0.4p.3 Finally, trunk calls too have become


Fig. 4. Average weekly wage in relation to annual telephone rental cost * adjusted for in#ation (base year"1923).Source: Flynn (1998). &The development of universal telephone service in Ireland, 1880}1993' (Unpublished, Phd. Thesis).

cheaper over the period under review. Between 1922/1923 and 1997, &A' rate trunk charges droppedby 25}30%, from 1.25 new pence to 0.87p. This "gure underwent some dramatic changes in thisperiod, increasing in the ten years up to 1932/1933 before falling to its cheapest sustained period inbetween 1942/1943 and 1955/1956. Thereafter it continues to #uctuate, peaking at 1.97p in1959/1960 and bottoming out at 0.677 in 1985.

This decline in the cost of telephony relative to in#ation, is ampli"ed by the fact that averagewage rates have increased signi"cantly faster than the rate of in#ation. Looking at the period from1926 to 1997 for example, had the weekly average male industrial wage increased in line within#ation it would have increased from C2.57 new pounds in 1926 to roughly C90.97 by 1997 (seeFig. 4). Instead the "gure for 1997 was C316.93. In short, real wages increased at three times the rateof in#ation, whilst the total cost per function dropped by over 50%. One can illustrate thisby comparing the increase in weekly wage rates to shifts in the basic entry cost for telephony(rental).

Note that whilst the annual cost of telephone rental outstrips average weekly wages until 1952,that for 20 or so years that followed, rental and wages increased at roughly the same rate(see Fig. 5). Only in the mid-1970s does a substantial gap between the two "gures appear again,this time favouring wage rates such that two to two-and-a-half days work would by 1997 pay thecost of annual telephone rental. This compares very favourably with the position in 1926 whenthe average industrial worker would have had to spend nearly three weeks wages to cover rentalalone.


Fig. 5. Total cost per call (including rental cost) (base year"1923). Source: Flynn (1998). &The development of universaltelephone service in Ireland, 1880}1993' (Unpublished, Phd. Thesis).

If the basic function of the telephone system is to make calls, then arguably the best measurementof its utility is the number of calls made and the changes in the cost of same over time. As notedabove, when considered in real terms, the cost of both local and trunk calls has fallen by 25}40%over the period under review. If, however, one factors in rental charges to the cost of making callsthen the cost per function for the subscriber falls even more dramatically, from 1.18 new pence in1922/1923 to 0.417p, a drop of nearly 65%.

Consequently it is safe to conclude that from the perspective of the subscriber cost per functionhas dropped dramatically. Indeed arguably, once one has made the initial investment of paying fortelephone rental, the marginal cost of making calls will drop ad in"nitum.

At the same time there is an irony in the fact that as of the late 1990s an &average' subscriber faceslarger bills than at any time during the last 70 years, largely because the number of calls made persubscriber has increased so dramatically. As Fig. 3 illustrates, combining the cost of rental and callswith the data available on the growth in call tra$c, allows one to trace the changing overall annualtelecommunications bill faced by an average subscriber. This rises from C16.87 in 1922/23 to C19.31in 1997 ("gures adjusted for in#ation). Once again however this is not a straightforward upwardgrowth. By 1936/1937, the annual cost had fallen to C13.13, falling again to its lowest ever point ofC6.38 in 1952/1953. Thereafter the average bill follows an upwards curve, although the increase isquite shallow until the late 1970s and mid-1980s when the increase in the number of calls persubscriber contribute to a quite dramatic upward curve. This "nding, although methodologically


4Note that the later "gures, especially those from the 1970s onwards will tend to be underestimates of the total costfaced by subscribers since the source for the number of calls made * the CSO* only distinguishes between operatordialed trunk calls and subscriber dialed calls. For our purposes, we have assumed that all subscriber dialed calls are local.In point of fact, however, the introduction of STD from 1960 onwards means that many of this latter call categories are infact trunk calls which should properly be charged in our "gures as such. However, as there is no accurate data or proxiesavailable to allow us to estimate how many of these calls should be charged as trunk, we have taken a conservativeapproach and assumed that all are local. If anything, however, this strengthens our assertion that per subscriberexpenditure has increased.

5Note that this "gure has been augmented by a factor of 10000 in Fig. 6 for purposes of comparison.

imperfect,4 is nonetheless signi"cant simply because it does point to the increasing costs faced bytelephone subscribers.

One could argue that these costs are voluntarily incurred however because the basic cost thatmust be incurred to receive service * rental * has not only declined in real terms but also asa proportion of the bill faced by our imaginary subscriber. From accounting for 44% of the total in1922/1923, rental falls to account for only 22% by 1997. In short, the increase in average subscriberbills is exclusively due to the substantial increases in the number of calls made. However, one canalso take issue with the extent to which such increased costs are incurred &voluntarily' by appealingto the consumption norms argument which suggests that increasing use of the telephone isa socially structured activity beyond the realm of discretionary expenditure on the part of theindividual (Preston & Flynn, 1999). Thus telephony is, as of 1998, both cheaper and more expensivethan ever before depending on which "gure one chooses to utilise.

3.2.2. Supply sideTotal annual running cost corrected for inyation: From 1922/1923 to 1996/1997, the total amount

expended on running the Irish telephone system increased from C265,075 per annum to C26,465,477(constant 1923 "gures). Overall this increase occurred pretty much constantly, although severalyears exhibit sudden increases in total expenditure, due almost exclusively to increased capitalexpenditure. These would include: 1924/1925, 1937/1938, 1948/1949, 1975, the period from 1981 to1984 and arguably 1997 which saw expenditure increase by more than 15% on the previous year.These surges coincide with deliberate policy moves to actively develop the telephone system or tocatch up with demand identi"ed in previous periods.

In contrast to what might be anticipated, the cost per subscriber has not substantially declined.Spending per subscriber stood at C22.13 in 1922/1923 (see Fig. 6).5 This had fallen to C19.04 by1996/97. Between these years, however, there are more substantial #uctuations. These tend tocoincide with sudden increases in total expenditure which lead to an increase in cost per subscriber,which then drops o! in subsequent years as subscriber numbers increase; whilst the level of capitalinvested either drops, levels o! or exhibits only slow growth. Thus whilst the single most expensiveperiod per subscriber appears to have been the latter half of the 1970s and early 1980s when thecost per subscriber averaged around C33 per annum, this was followed by the cheapest period peraverage subscriber in the mid-1990s when the cost dropped to only C17, partially con"rming thefalling cost per function thesis.


Fig. 6. Supply side costs 1922}1997 (base year 1923). Source: Flynn (1998). &The development of universal telephoneservice in Ireland, 1880}1993' (Unpublished, Phd. Thesis).

A much more convincing support for the falling cost per function thesis comes from examiningthe cost to the service provider of providing their basic unit of service* the telephone call. Overthe entire course of the period under review, call costs have fallen to less than a third of their1922/1923 "gure. Again the most dramatic single decline occurs from 1975 onwards as theenormous increase in call tra$c meant that even during the greatest period of investment in thesystem (one which coincided with the decision to &go digital') that cost per call fell steadily.

4. Summary and retrospect: the long-run performance of the Irish telephone system

Having considered the historical data above, let us now consider how it relates to the modelsoutlined earlier in Section 2. In particular, let us consider how do the models account for the twincritical mass points identi"ed above* that of subscriber numbers in the late 1940s and of calls persubscriber in 1975. We should begin by noting Markus' assertion that growth towards the criticalmass is aided by a heterogeneity of resources and interests within the adopting community isapparently borne out by the development of the telephone in Ireland prior to 1922. Althoughstrictly speaking this period falls outside the remit of this article, it should be acknowledged that theearly Irish subscriber base was quite di!erent to that characterising the modern system. Early usershad clearly identi"able information needs that did not necessarily require a large installed user


base. Thus early adopters in Ireland consisted almost exclusively of business and institutionalusers, most notably the Dublin Metropolitan Police and Dublin Fire Brigade from 1882 onwards.This occurred despite an explicit e!ort on the part of the privately owned Telephone Company ofIreland to market the phone as a domestic implement from as early as 1884. Its initial failure asa domestic implement (in fact the telephone would not pass 50% household penetration until 1985in Ireland) suggests that business demand almost exclusively drove the slow adoption of thetelephone in Ireland up till the 1940s. As late as 1930, business sets accounted for more than 85% ofthe installed base of 29,500 telephone sets.

Moving to examine the main period of concern here, however, we can start by seeking to answerthe question implicitly posed by Rogers' "ve-stage innovation}decision process: what factors shapethe decision of an individual to adopt an innovation such as the telephone? We will assume thatthe "rst stage in Rogers' model* basic knowledge of the existence and function of the telephone* was established for the bulk of the population by 1922. Thus our focus will therefore be on thepersuasion and decision phases.

As suggested in Section 2 above, the simplest possible explanation for network growth or theabsence thereof is a simple study of the relationship between cost and demand. In seeking tounderstand the post-war take-o! in subscriber numbers it is tempting to point to the fact that ourcost per function indicator in Fig. 5 * i.e. the aggregate cost of making a single telephone call* reached its lowest point ever between 1945 and 1951. It would be the late 1970s before a lower"gure was achieved. This was combined with a steady increase in average wage rates, the in#uenceof which cannot be overstated: in the eight years between 1942 and 1950 for example, the cost ofannual telephone rental dropped from over a week-and-half's wages to exactly a week * a costreduction of one third. In the longer term, however, this cannot be a satisfactory explanation: after1951 the cost per function "gure began a rise that would continue until the mid-1970s. Yet despitethis subscriber numbers continued to increase at a faster rate than in the pre-war period. In short,simply pointing to the falling cost per function factor cannot account for the dramatic increase insubscriber numbers between 1945 and 1975.

Logically, then we turn to our next model, that of Eli Noam with its stress on the utility of thetelephone. If falling costs are not the answer then perhaps an increase in the perceived utility of thetelephone is. Utility is a di$cult concept to work with: such a subjective factor is almost byde"nition unmeasurable. Noam's suggestion that subscriber numbers are a proxy measure of utilityappears logical since the potential utility of any given telephone instrument increases every timea new subscriber is added. In practice, however, the relationship between subscriber numbers andutility is unlikely to be so straightforward. Simply adding new subscribers may not necessarilyincrease the utility of the instrument for existing subscribers, unless the latter group has a particularinterest in the new subscribers. This Irish context o!ers clear evidence refuting a straightforwardconnection between subscriber numbers and utility since as Fig. 2 illustrates, the dramatic increasein subscriber numbers during the late 1940s did not engender concomitant increases in call tra$cper subscriber. In fact the opposite is true. Thus one could only apply Noam's model to the Irishcase study, by reversing it. If the 1940s do represent the critical mass point for the Irish telephonesystem, then that critical mass point occurs at a time when actual per subscriber usage of thetelephone is declining and just before an increase in the cost per function.

We are then still left with the question as to why the 1940s saw the take-o! it did and why thattake-o! persisted into the next decades. It is at this point that we feel we must move away from


explanations based on generic models and towards one that takes speci"c national and historicalcircumstances more into account. To begin with, we would like to recall Markus' eminently logicalsuggestion that universal access to an interactive medium is more likely to occur amongsta community characterised by geographical dispersion. Given this, Ireland would appear to o!eran ideal location for telephone network development since Irish population density has beenamongst the lowest in Europe over the course of this century (and indeed it consistently declinedbetween 1900 and 1970). Thus outside the eastern conurbation and a few other cities (or largetowns), Ireland has been characterised by relatively isolated but also highly self-contained andself-reliant villages. Yet this had the opposite e!ect of engendering a demand for communicationnetworks, instead contributing to the development of a localist bias in Irish culture, re#ected in apreference for face-to-face contact, a fact frequently noted in studies of Irish political culture. Therewas thus no perceived supervening social necessity for the telephone. (Nor did a high level ofemigration since the mid-nineteenth century create such a necessity* the letter post remained theprimary connection between emigrants and their families at home and the telegram in emergencies.)

In this context, however, we believe that the Second World War played a crucial role in the Irishinnovation}decision process with regard to the telephone. Wartime (and indeed post-war) fuelrationing led to a substantial reduction in both private and public road tra$c levels. Contempor-ary Irish Department of Posts and Telegraphs memos explicitly identify this as encouragingincreased use of the telephone network:

&the telephone has been used to an abnormal extent by the commercial community and private personsowing to the general transport di$culties and problems of trade arising out of the emergency' (Depart-ment of Posts and Telegraphs, 1994, 16 October).&... every added limitation of ordinary public facilities* transport, fuel, supplies, etc.* seems, by reason,no doubt, of the upset to normal activities, to react immediately upon the telephones' (Dial Debates, 1943,1944).

As a result the Department of Posts and Telegraphs noted that &during the Emergency all classesof people have acquired the habit of using the telephone extensively and it may be taken that theservice will be used more and more in the future' (Department of Posts and Telegraphs, 1944, 16November). Thus war conditions lead a portion of the population to explore the potential of thetelephone sooner than might otherwise have been the case. Assuming that those individuals whowere pressed to use the telephone in these unusual circumstances were impressed by its utility, it islogical to conclude that they would have been amongst the "rst to apply for telephone service oncethe war was over (especially during a brief consumer spending boom in 1946}1947). This may beginto explain the post-war take-o! in subscriber demand but we are still left with the question of whysubscriber numbers increased without a concomitant increase in call numbers.

Here we suspect that a combination of historically speci"c but also some more universal factorsmust be taken into account. In the former category is the in#uence of speci"c institutionalsupply-side factors. The increase in wartime call tra$c convinced the Irish State to approve a 15year post-war development plan. This was not the "rst time the state had made relativelysubstantial increases in investment in a short period. As Fig. 6 above suggests such increases hadoccurred in both 1924/1925 and 1937/1938. Yet these experiences made it clear that * of itself* such investment was insu$cient to engender signi"cant increases in demand for service. Even


allowing for a lag period of three to "ve years between the political decision to increase levels ofinvestment and that investment making itself felt, the 1924/1925 investment singularly failed toprompt any dramatic increases in demand. The fact that the cost of subscription was apparentlyconsidered too high relative to the anticipated utility of the telephone may o!er some explanation forthis absence. Similarly, the second major investment period* 1937/1938* also failed to register anysubstantial take-up in subscriber numbers, although for di!erent reason. Telephone development inthe early period of &The Emergency' (1939}1941) focused on defences needs, creating a coastaltelephone infrastructure connecting army lookout posts. At the same time, the war years e!ectivelysaw the Department of Posts and Telegraphs place a moratorium on accepting applications for newtelephone connections to residential subscribers (and indeed to some businesses). Thus the bene"ts ofthe immediate pre-war investment were largely soaked up by the Department of Defence.

The post-war investment took place in di!erent circumstances. As noted above the war yearshad facilitated the development of &the telephone habit' (as the Department of Posts and Tele-graphs termed it) among new sections of the population. However the programme funded by theinvestment also di!ered from the experiments of the 1920s and 1930s. Speci"cally the stateexplicitly set out to install public call boxes in the country's 900 sub-post o$ces (e!ectively creatingthe skeleton of a nation-wide telephone network in the process) and to treble the private subscriberbase by 1960.

Crucial for our understanding of the apparent contradiction between increasing subscribernumbers and static call tra$c per subscriber was the pricing policy adopted by the state during thisperiod. The policy was deliberately geared to encourage new subscribers but to ensure that thedevelopment of the telephone system did not lead to huge losses. This was achieved by graduallyaltering the relative cost of rental (the basic access cost) and call charges. Between 1940 and 1969,rental charges in money terms increased by 120%, roughly in line with increases in the averageindustrial wage. By contrast local call charges increased by over 300% in money terms. In short,the Department deliberately adopted a policy that would encourage the di!usion of the telephonebut which also dampened demand for actual call use. Only when, by the close of the 1960s, it hadbecome clear that the growing waiting list could not be dealt by short-term injections of capital didthe Department begin to shift to a policy of seeking to dampen demand by substantially increasingrental charges and introducing connection charges.

Yet one must also acknowledge the impact of interactive nature of the system to fully understandthe apparent stagnation in call tra$c. The development of the system between 1945 and 1960 wasfocused on bringing the network to outlying areas as never before. However new subscribers inthose areas were unlikely to call or be called by the vast majority of pre-1945 subscribers, not justbecause they had no previous history of being connected but also because they lay in quite di!erentcall areas. Only very gradually would this new tranche of subscribers be able to reach the samenumber of subscribers with a local call as their pre-1945 connection counterparts. In short, it seemsvery likely that new subscribers in remoter more sparsely populated areas made fewer calls thantheir urban counterparts and thus brought down the average calls per subscriber "gure. Only whenthe system began to reach maturity in these outlying areas would a general increase in call tra$c berealised.

This brings us to our second key question* the leap in both call tra$c and calls per customerfrom 1975 onwards. The period from 1975 to 1997 saw dramatic changes both in terms of thetelephone's utility and in terms of its cost. Not merely did the number of subscribers begin to


Fig. 7. Relationship between average industrial wage and total average annual expenditure on telecommunications1922}1997 (base year"1923). Source: Flynn (1998). &The development of universal telephone service in Ireland,1880}1993' (Unpublished, Phd. Thesis).

increase at ever faster pace, but the period from 1976 to 1996 saw the average number of calls persubscriber triple from just under 1500 to over 4500. Again it could be suggested that the increasewas due to the fact that, as Figs. 4 and 5 make clear, both cost per function and rental costs declinedsubstantially in real terms after 1975. Whilst in 1974 a worker on the average industrial wage had towork a week to cover the annual rental cost, this had dropped to only 2.5 days by 1997. Meanwhile,cost per function dropped by nearly half over the same period. Yet to suggest that demandincreased simply because of falling cost is harder to do if one takes into account the "gures for totalaverage annual expenditure on telecommunications (i.e. bundling together rental charges with callcosts) over this period. As Fig. 7 indicates, the gap between wages and total telecommunicationsexpenditure actually increased after 1975 as the increase in call tra$c per subscriber outstrippedthe savings from the fall in the cost per call.

What we are saying is that expenditure on telecommunications increased as a percentage of theaverage household budget. Thus we still need to account for the dramatic post-1975 increases intra$c. Here again we would argue for the need to combine a general understanding of the di!usionof interactive media with speci"c national conditions. David Allen has noted that part of thechallenge in critical mass scenarios is &to change general perceptions of a new service from a viewthat sees novelty to one that sees necessity instead' (Allen, 1988). By the mid-1970s there were330,000 subscribers in Ireland; perhaps one in "ve homes had a telephone. In short, the telephonehad gradually insinuated itself into the daily life of a substantial portion of the population and asthe waiting list of the 1970s (peaking at 100,000 applicants) suggests access to the telephone wasidenti"ed as essential for day-to-day living by a further portion. We can suggest then that theperiod from 1945 to 1975 represented a time of social learning for the Irish with respect to thetelephone. But furthermore, as suggested above, by the mid-1970s telephone development had


6The choice of the term &trigger' here is deliberate in order to avoid any notion of an autonomous or singular &cause' ofthis shift. Rather the idea of &trigger' here points to a sort of catalyst which only becomes relevant or e!ective given theprior accumulation of a complex stream of relevant and necessary changes or conditioning factors.

reached a sort of mid-term maturity in virtually every region of Ireland. Telephone densityalthough still heavily skewed towards urban areas (and in particular Dublin) was far more evenlydi!used nationally than had been the case even 15 years earlier. In e!ect, the existence ofa substantial subscriber base in the mid-1970s would facilitate the widespread adoption of thetelephone as an instrument for carrying out daily activities * i.e. for becoming at least in parta consumption norm. Despite these accumulating streams of change, there was a requirement forsome additional factor or event to trigger6 the shift to distinctively new usage patterns. Curiously,the trigger for a sudden and signi"cant increase in call tra$c appears to have been virtually thesame as that explaining the brief wartime tra$c peak. In Ireland, the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979lead to sporadic but nation-wide fuel shortages and petrol price rises, severely reducing the level ofroad journeys. Once again face-to-face contact was forcibly curtailed. In contrast to the immediatepost-war period when the existing subscriber base was too small to permit the wartime tra$cincreases to be sustained, subscriber numbers had, by 1970, passed a critical mass point whichmade it possible to build on the oil crisis imposed increase in call tra$c. Thus the oil shock increasein per subscriber usage acted as a trigger for the subsequent increase in the average number of callsper subscriber.

In our view then the idea of a critical mass point creating a self-generating growth pattern doeso!er a rich analytical tool with which to understand the di!usion of a given telephone system butonly in conjunction with a detailed historical examination of speci"c national circumstances,including the role of important &trigger' points or factors. Furthermore, it should be acknowledgedthat even the critical mass model underplays the crucial importance of institutional actors inshaping that di!usion. To complete an understanding of post-1975 growth, one needs to considerthe 1975 and 1981/1984 investment increases: investment driven by demand and yet without whichsubsequent subscriber growth could not have occurred. 1975 represented the "rst serious attemptto deal with a waiting list, which having emerged in the late 1940s had reached critical proportionsby the 1970s, as demand for new connections continually outstripped actual increases in newconnections. In the event, the mid-1970s investment appears less to have facilitated an increase insubscriber numbers and in call tra$c levels. Since the basic backbone of the national system wouldhave been in place by the start of the 1960s, however, this is perhaps not surprising. After this point,increases in subscriber numbers relied less on investment to expand the system's geographicalreach and more on increasing system capacity with larger and more advanced exchanges. In theshort-term, however, this infrastructure investment to increase or enhance system capacity wasa precondition for the increase in call tra$c witnessed from the 1970s. Hence to that extent, theearlier mid-1960s decision on shifting investment priorities to ensure that the system could copewith existing subscriber tra$c, was a prerequisite for the dramatic 1970s increase in call tra$c.

In this context, the remarkable investment between 1981 and 1984 (to date the most expensiveperiod of sustained investment) associated with the post-Dargan Report's &accelerated develop-ment programme' (ADP) was predicated on the understanding that having under-invested in theservice over the previous sixty years that only a sudden injection of capital would allow the system


to cope with the dramatically increased demand of the 1970s. Indeed the intention of the ADP wasto place the service on a footing whereby it would never fall so far behind demand again. Once theADP was complete, Telecom Eireann which took over the running of the national telecommunica-tions in January 1984 moved swiftly to capitalise on the newly developed system it inherited,actively marketing the telephone to business and in particular residential customers via a series ofpricing and service innovations. Clearly, then the investment of the "rst half of the 1980s werea prerequisite for the remarkable expansion in subscriber numbers which has been ongoing sincethe latter half of the 1980s.

5. Conclusion

One key conclusion from the approach adopted here and the empirical study material is that inthemselves, abstract deductive models (be they related to techno-economic factors, di!usion,systems e!ect, etc.), are at best unsatisfactory. They are fundamentally #awed when it comes too!ering a framework for understanding the empirically or historically observable development ofnational telecommunications systems in a single country like Ireland, not to mention the diversitybetween countries.

We are not arguing that universal forces, such as techno-economic factors, are entirely withoutmerit or unimportant: for example in understanding subscriber growth in the 1945}1975 period,the techno-economic model focused on falling cost per function does appear to o!er a close "t withthe empirical evidence presented. In some respects, this may be de"ned as a sort of pervasive oruniversal conditioning factor which is part of the story everywhere. It is to be regarded as oneimportant (universal) or necessary character in the story in every case but not a su$cientlyimportant &centre-stage' character to shape the overall narrative.

As the analysis above illustrates, whilst a combination of such &universal' factors derived frommore deductive models may be useful in elucidating di!erent parts of the story, they are notsu$ciently nuanced or adequate to describe or frame the complex stories of di!erent nationalhistorical experiences. Indeed, we would argue that even a combination of models cannot achievethis end. The dominant deductive models by de"nition seek to advance universal explanatoryfactors. Attempting to apply them to speci"c national circumstances is likely to run up against theinescapable fact that reality rarely "ts the projected di!usion or performance patterns or indeed theassumptions underlying such models. The speci"c social, political, economic, etc., conditions inany one country are likely to present rare and sometimes unique circumstances. Given this,any national telecommunications policy arrived at via such abstract models is not likely toadequately address speci"c interests or requirements of a given socio-economic formation orpolicy/regulatory regime. Similarly, the passive or blanket acceptance by national policymakers ofspeci"c telecom policy/regulatory instruments or practices originating with speci"c economic orsocial interests prevailing in a quite separate locale/contexts must be subject to severe challengeand critical questioning.

With this Irish case study we have attempted to illustrate the value of a historical and empiricallybased understanding of the socio-economic, political or institutional factors which have servedto shape the development of telecommunications services and policy in Ireland. We are fullyaware that of itself, this Irish case study has unique attributes and we are not proposing any


&breakthrough' by way of a new model with universal claims for understanding the factors shapingtelecommunications development. What we do propose and seek to encourage are further studiesand comparative approaches which would bring together similar empirically based researchfocused on other national or regional settings } with a view to identifying the major patterns andindicators of di!usion and performance and the con#uence's of in#uences and factors shaping thekey moments of change. Given the dearth of similar prior studies in the public domain, this articlecannot claim to be a "nal or complete study of the questions posed here. But we are aware thatthere has been a signi"cant growth in research on the historical development of telecommunica-tions in other countries in more recent years. Thus it is also our belief that through the exchangeand comparison of such empirically based research "ndings, it may be possible to move beyond thelimitations of the existing body of knowledge (largely based on inductive reasoning or at best, thespeci"c empirical experience of the US) and hopefully develop more compelling general models ortheories of the similarities as well as di!erences. This may well include factors which are typicallyconsidered as falling outside the remit of telecommunications studies but which nonetheless dohave an impact. By sharing the "ndings of such empirical studies we can begin to explore possiblecommonalties and di!erences between historical experiences and so move to more robust modelsof the interplay of political, social, economic as well as technical factors which shape the develop-ment and use of telecommunications networks and services.

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