Privatization and liberalization of Telecommunications services in European Union and Turkey

Nowadays, the structure of the economy, which has changed as a result of developments in telecommunication technologies and globalization process, makes competition to become dependent on information. Especially, together with the technologic developments and globalization in the last two decades, first by implementing some regulations on the telecommunication systems, which were under public control at the countries level, some countries have tried to direct the sector by privatization outset then liberalization or the two method together or by just liberalization. Recently, there have been taken important steps in telecommunication sector in our country. In this vein, at the stage of telecommunication policy improvement, world developments are being followed closely and shared strategic aims are tried to be sanctified with European Union. In this study; liberalization and privatization processes in the European and Turkish telecommunication services are being evaluated. Considering the importance of telecommunication sector for economic growth, privatization and liberalization experiences of the last two decades are reviewed, the reforms are evaluated in the European Union countries which had brought the privatization of the public monopolies or had put radical changes in the traditional structure. This study focuses on the analysis on competitive issues about the telecommunications sector in the light of the legislation in European Union and Turkey and aims to bring some critical recommendations to give some insights about the improvement process of the sector.