Regulatory Challenges to the Evolving NGN World: A Techno-Economic Perspective

NGN is an increasingly becoming the market reality of the information and communication sector and hence has put forward many challenges to the National Regulatory Authorities of the whole world. In this period of migration from the legacy networks to the NGN, every regulator has adopted an approach different from other depending upon the regulatory environment in which they operate and the future plans of the market player. Fundamentally, the NGNs decouple the functionality between network and the services to be offered on these networks. This decoupling brings different types of business models with respect to the degree of integration of transport, control and service provision. In the presence of these business models the continuity of perfect competition and economic growth is a challenging task for the NRAs. In this paper we will elaborate the regulatory challenges posed by network evolution, some current regulatory options, role of the geographic markets in the regulatory framework and then will conclude that "All-in-one" regulatory approach is not suitable for the regulation of NGN, particularly during this transition period.