U.S. Telecommunications Policy: Demand Dictates Supply

This article, which appeared in the GAO Journal, No. 12, Spring 1991, discusses the necessity of telecommunications development policies and the many issues that would need to be addressed by such policies, including: (1) the state of the nation's current telecommunications system; (2) past and future investments of telephone, telecommunications, and cable industries; (3) competition among those industries; (4) ways to determine the cost-effectiveness of technology development; (5) opportunities to demonstrate the utility of smarter technology in order to encourage demand for it; (6) regulation of the involved industries; and (7) the need for such telecommunications to focus not on increasing the supply of services, but increasing the demand for them.