Value Added Services: Regulation and Reality in the United States

Abstract

This article examines the development of value-added services (VAS) in the USA and is the companion to an article by the same authors in the last issue of Telecommunications Policy, which focused on Germany. There is a detailed discussion of how demand-side and supply-side factors are affecting the VAS market in the context of US regulatory policy. Restrictions imposed on the activities of AT&T by the Modified Final Judgment of 1982, although later somewhat relaxed, led to a very different development of such services than has occurred in Germany or other European countries. Nevertheless these different paths may eventually lead to the same goal of totally free competition in all telecommunication services.