Horizontal Integration in Telecommunications Industry

Technological advancements and innovations have changed the market and services structure of telecommunications industry drastically. Since the implement of functional separation in British Telecommunication (BT), separation of network from service provision in telecommunication has raised widespread concern in many countries. This paper analyzes the current status of the development of functional separation in Europe Union, then explains the idea of separation of network from service provision and demonstrates it from the economics point of view. The inevitable trend of future telecom markets is horizontally integrated value chain structure.