TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY IN THE EUROPEAN-UNION - DEVELOPING THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY

By the end of this century, the telecommunications market in the Europ ean Union will have been transformed from a collection of national mon opolies providing little apart from basic voice telephony and Value-Ad ded Network Services (VANS) into a unified, competitive market for mul timedia services - or at least that is the intention behind a series o f directives issued by the European Commission. This should open up en ormous opportunities for service providers, whatever their origin, and the process of forming the necessary alliances for world-wide coverag e has begun in earnest. A first step, in many cases, is the privatizat ion of the national monopoly provider. New forms of competition such a s cable and mobile telephony are springing up with unprecedented speed - so fast, indeed, that the consumer is being left in the wake of the technology.