Harnessing the Swarm: Communication Policy in an Era of Ubiquitous Networks and Disruptive Technologies

This paper examines the prospects and limits of policies on information and communications technologies (ICTs) that enable knowledge-based societies. Its main argument is that the co-evolution of technological, economic, and political factors, which unfolded during the past three decades, has transformed the information network infrastructure from a closed to an open system. This fundamental change has far-reaching implications for the governance of the sector that need to be recognized more explicitly in the theoretical foundations, the formation and the implementation of policy. Paradoxically, policy was better able to control important performance characteristics, such as prices or investment levels, in the monopoly era of the past. However, the ability to control came at the high price of the inefficiencies associated with monopoly organization. In the present competitive framework, many feasible policy instruments only work indirectly. Sector performance is an emergent property resulting from decentralized decisions in markets. It is influenced, but not fully determined by policy choices. Unexpected consequences, which could be treated as aberrations in the old system, may become more common and create new challenges for policy. In OECD countries, the new legal and regulatory framework has contributed to enhanced sector performance. Compared to the rigid world of monopoly communications, information networks are almost ubiquitously available, prices have fallen and innovation has soared (OECD, 2003