It's Hard to be a Telecom Regulator, Sometimes

These graphs from the International Telecommunications Union illustrate why it sometimes is so hard for communications regulators to come with policies that match the way the world is becoming, instead of what it has been.

Consider the irony of the U.S. Telecommunications Act of 1996, which aimed to spur innovation in the telecommunications business by allowing more competitors in the fixed network voice business. 

As the graph indicates, 1996 was about the inflection point where the whole global telecommunications  business became a "mobile" business. 

That year also was the point at which Internet use by consumers began its long rise. Then, sometime between 1998 and 2001, the adoption of Internet access and applications in emerging markets likewise reached an inflection point. 

The point is that no amount of backward-looking regulation was going to help much, since growth already was poised to shift to mobile and Internet. "

Granted, regulating "forward" probably isn't much easier. Of course, that is one reason Internet and communications executives often urge caution about prematurely imposing new rules. 

Only in retrospect is it possible to see when old problems don't need to be solved, because new solutions, behaviors and possibilities already are being born.