The privatisation of telecommunications services : comparison of the developed and developing countries

The telecommunication sector in most countries was managed by the government for a long period. Government provision led to poor delivery of services, poor cost recovery, heavy subsidies and pOOl' maintenance. Privatisation was adopted as a means of overcoming these problems in the telecommunications sector in most developing countries. However, the results were not as expected due to poor privatisations processes, absence of genuine regulatory structure and unnecessary interference from the government. Hence the teledensity, breakages, call completion times, and tariff levels have not improved significantly compared to the developed countries.<br />