No, on the contrary. For example, if it hadn't been for proactive
regulatory intervention in local loop unbundling in Korea and
Japan and many other regulatory measures, there wouldn't be such
a dynamic broadband market in those countries nor would one see
so much growth in VOIP services. You can thank the regulators
and policy makers in those countries for stimulating growth and
bringing lots of benefits to users...
and there are many sad but significant national examples where the
regulators and governments do the opposite.
There were in this country two very large monopolies. The
larger of the two had the following record: the Vietnam War,
Watergate, double-digit inflation, fuel and energy shortages,
bankrupt airlines, and the 8-cent postcard. The second was
responsible for such things as the transistor, the solar cell,
lasers, synthetic crystals, high fidelity stereo recording,
sound motion pictures, radio astronomy, negative feedback,
magnetic tape, magnetic "bubbles", electronic switching
systems, microwave radio and TV relay systems, information
theory, the first electrical digital computer, and the first
communications satellite. Guess which one got to tell the
other how to run the telephone business? -- anon
randy