ISDN - THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS HIGHWAY FOR EUROPE AFTER 1992

This article examines EC policies intended to promote the coordinated introduction of an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) in all member countries by 1993. ISDN was originally supposed to be a new telecommunications network that would eventually replace the old telephone network. It is argued that the EC's ISDN activities are trapped between the attempt to liberalize the so far closed and fragmented European telecommunications markets on the one hand and the aim of building up a strong, independent European telecommunications industry and a Europe-wide telecommunications network on the other. At the moment ISDN deployment is far behind schedule and will not fulfil the Commission's expectations.