From national hierarchies to international standardization : historical and modal changes in the coordination of telecommunications

The convergence of telecommunications and computer technology stimulated a global expansion of networks and services which was accompanied by a deregulation of this industry. In the liberalized worldmarket a great number of heterogeneous actors must coordinate the development and production of technology as well as the provision of new services. The old mode of hierarchical coordination internalizing technical, economic and political control, which originated from the sovereign state system of earlier decades, could not be transformed into transnational hierarchy. Thus coordination is widely restricted to achieving technical compatibility of telecommunications systems. A network of international and regional standardization committees, growing in number, has evolved. They issue the required technical recommendations, which are usually more complementary and optional than substitutive, so that division of labor instead of competition prevails.