If you asked most economists or policymakers at the end of the 1990s what would transform national economies next, the conversation would have circled inevitably to telecommunications. Deregulation—so often debated, often contentious—had swept through much of Europe, Asia, and the Americas by 1999, upending the old model of state-run monopolies. For those tasked with measuring the results, ISIC 6420, “Telecommunications,” served as both a blessing and a limitation. The code offered a consistent way to tally sector participants, but less clarity about how those participants were actually behaving as markets opened and competition intensified.
The first step in tracking the proliferation of telecom operators is a census of firms registered under ISIC 6420. In the years just before and after deregulation, the lists tell their own story—what was once a handful of legacy incumbents, sometimes only one or two per country, becomes a more crowded field. This is where the classification’s limitations surface. ISIC 6420 captures all telecom service providers: fixed-line operators, mobile entrants, ISPs, even, in some cases, resellers or niche players focused on business-to-business solutions. The resulting heterogeneity is both a feature and a frustration.
Differentiating true “operators” from resellers or value-added service providers often requires secondary filters. Licensing lists from national regulators—often published as part of deregulation rollouts—can help. These typically distinguish facilities-based operators from service-only firms, and, with a bit of effort, allow for a more accurate count. Some records are clean and digitized, others remain scattered in official gazettes or archived press releases. Even with careful filtering, though, the sector’s edges remain fuzzy: some firms entered briefly and exited, others changed names, merged, or pivoted to new technologies as the decade turned.
Pricing and subscriber growth are the next analytical hurdles. Pre-deregulation, price lists were set by regulators and rarely changed; after, the landscape fragmented, with competing operators experimenting with tariffs, bundled services, and, in some cases, predatory pricing. Historical tariffs can usually be found in regulatory filings, industry reports, or, sometimes, newspaper advertisements. Post-deregulation, the sheer number of plans and promotions makes direct comparison a challenge. Analysts often select representative services—say, a standard monthly line rental, peak-time call rates, or mobile prepaid starter packages—and chart changes over time. It is almost always necessary to standardize these figures, correcting for inflation, currency shifts, or changing definitions of “basic service.”
Subscriber growth offers a different window. National statistical offices, international agencies like the ITU, and the operators themselves (especially if listed) report subscriber counts regularly. The data show, in most cases, a marked inflection following deregulation, as pent-up demand for mobile lines or high-speed internet is released. Growth, however, is rarely uniform. Urban centers typically see faster adoption than rural areas. Sometimes a price war or a technical leap—GSM, CDMA, broadband—accelerates uptake in unpredictable ways. The data rarely line up neatly with expectations.
Comparing pre- and post-deregulation periods demands careful attention to timing and context. In some markets, deregulation happened in stages—mobile before fixed, long-distance before local, internet lagging behind voice. Cross-country comparisons can be treacherous, given differences in legacy infrastructure, investment climates, and political priorities. But within each country, a timeline plotting operator counts, price indices, and subscriber numbers against regulatory milestones paints a vivid picture of transformation—sometimes turbulent, occasionally disappointing, but often remarkable in speed and scale.
It’s important to keep a record of every methodological choice: which firms were included, which pricing plans were used, how subscribers were defined. Deregulation, for all its promise, didn’t always deliver straightforward results. In a few countries, new entrants faltered, prices bounced back up, or market concentration returned in a different guise. But the traces—visible in ISIC 6420 lists, in tariff sheets, in millions of new subscriber lines—remain. For those willing to parse the details, the story of telecom deregulation is not simply one of more operators, but of shifting ground, innovation, and an industry remaking itself in real time.