ISDN: The telecommunications highway for Europe after 1992 or Paving a dead end street?: The politics of pan-european telecommunications network development

The paper examines the policies of the Commission of the European Community (CEC) aiming towards a coordinated introduction of an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) in all member countries by 1993. Originally, ISDN was supposed to be a new telecommunications network that would eventuallyreplace the old telephone network. The analysis shows, however, that the ISDN activities of the CEC have been somewhat trapped between the attempt toliberalize the hitherto closed and fragmented European telecommunications markets on the one hand and the aim to build up a strong, independent European telecommunications industry and a Europe-wide telecommunications network on the other. At present, ISDN deployment is far behind schedule, and it will not fulfill the expectations of the Commission. Nevertheless, the CEC has established itself as an agenda-setting actor in European telecommunications policy.