The frontier of telecommunications deregulation: small countries leading the pack

The deregulation of the telecommunications industry in the relatively small countries of Australia, Chile, New Zealand and Guatemala have proven to be successful and disproved the myth that telecommunications is a natural monopoly. Chile pioneered telecommunications deregulation through its 1982 General Law on Telecommunications. Chile implemented unrestricted competition in Apr 1, 1989 while Australia created the 1991 Telecommunications Act. Guatemala implemented sweeping reforms in Nov 1996.