From the goal of supervision to the system of supervision, the evolution route of communication supervision

The government supervision, which has a profound influence on the development, layout and application scope of information and communication technology, has made remarkable progress in the world.


For decades, all countries have been committed to establishing a regulatory system for the communication technology industry, effectively supporting the continuous technological progress in the field of communication technology, and promoting the rapid service of emerging communication technologies to the public.


At present, the digital era has come all-round. The integration of industries brought by the deep development of digital economy challenges the original regulatory model and framework. The maximum release of digital economic potential requires a new regulatory model of agility, innovation and collaboration. As the key support and link of various industries, the information and communication industry puts forward new requirements for the information and communication supervision to adapt to the new situation of digital transformation.


When the information and communication industry is moving towards the digital society, how can the information and communication industry change from specific industry supervision to cross sector collaborative supervision facing digital transformation? From the regulatory objective to the regulatory system, the evolution of communication supervision has already appeared.


The evolution route of communication supervision


Government supervision, namely, the management and supervision of market subject and its behavior, such as the identification of market subject qualification, the provisions on market access and exit, the approval of commodity price and other behaviors closely related to the national economy and people’s livelihood, so as to regulate the market order and promote the healthy and stable development of market economy.


Government supervision is not only the internal requirement of governing the country and administration according to law, but also helps to strengthen the macro-control of the market and give full play to the government functions under the background of the rule of law.


For a long time, communication supervision is an important part of government supervision, which plays an important role in promoting the healthy and scientific development of the communication industry, maintaining economic and political security, optimizing the allocation of market resources, improving the utilization rate of resources and meeting the needs of the masses for communication facilities and services.


The International Telecommunication Union believes that the global information and communication supervision has experienced five generations of evolution. Among them, the first generation regulatory objective is to encourage the improvement of the efficiency and service of state-owned monopoly telecommunication business operation. The second generation aims to promote effective competition by realizing partial privatization. The third generation regulatory goal is to protect infrastructure investment, service quality and consumer rights and interests.


The fourth generation regulatory objective, that is, the current common regulatory objective of all countries is to encourage cross-border integration competition, promote business innovation, ensure the security of network information, improve consumer welfare, and conduct integrated supervision in the digital ecosystem environment. In addition, some countries have taken the lead in the fifth generation of supervision, that is, more and more attention has been paid to cross sector coordination supervision to promote economic and social development and enhance national competitiveness and leadership.


The evolution of the first generation to the fifth generation regulatory objective also confirms the development and change of communication supervision in China. Since 1998, according to the overall requirements of the national economic system reform, the communication industry has implemented the separation of government and enterprise. Today, China’s communication industry has experienced the reform process from post and telecommunications business to merger and reorganization, and then gradually transformed to information and communication industry with the rapid development of the Internet.


From the perspective of communication market development, it can be said that it is a market-oriented development history of the industry which breaks monopoly and introduces competition; From the perspective of communication supervision, it is a process of supervision from nothing to existence, the scope of supervision from small to large, regulatory procedures from disorder to chapter gradually standardized.


Nowadays, the new generation of information and communication technology, represented by 5g, big data and artificial intelligence, has opened up a new space for production and life. As the engine of modern social economic growth and social development, communication technology has embedded all aspects of social life and provided new impetus for global development.


Just as various industries and consumers have realized that information technology is essential in people’s daily life, governments now recognize that the formulation and implementation of effective national policies in a series of important areas requires effective coordination of national regulatory policies in communication technology facilities and services, while at the same time, Regulatory policy objectives in the field of communication technology cannot be independent of other policy behaviors.


Therefore, under the background of global digital economic competition gradually upgrading, communication technology embedded in all aspects of social life, it is an important topic to establish a adaptive and collaborative supervision system to better promote digital transformation.


Regulatory collection and release


An inevitable challenge for this issue is the balance between regulation and free markets. For example, in the early stage of Internet development, China has created a relatively loose policy environment. The start-up companies have benefited from this, and the fierce and sufficient market competition has promoted the survival of the fittest and formed the market competitiveness. This is also an important reason for the achievements of the Internet in China today.


With the Internet beginning to infiltrate into the areas with low marketization, the competent authorities have more and more strict supervision on it. It is necessary to strengthen supervision for mature businesses (such as online retail) and those related to people’s life and property security (such as P2P network loan). For those new business forms that are unknown and larger than known, the problems in development are not to help improve the governance by different categories in the attitude of encouraging innovation, but to the situation of killing with a stick, which greatly limits the germination of new technology, new business form and new mode, and greatly strikes the enthusiasm of large groups to start businesses and innovate.


Communication industry is the infrastructure industry and the traditional natural monopoly industry. Since the reform and opening up, China’s communication industry has made new development achievements. The introduction of competition mechanism has gradually broken the natural monopoly, which has added vitality to the development of the industry. However, with the continuous development of competition, some enterprises use bad means, which causes the difficulties of interconnection, price war and disorder of competition. This seriously disrupts the order of communication market, affects information security and the daily life of consumers, and infringes on the interests of the public.


Obviously, in the era of digital economy, if the relationship between supervision and market cannot be balanced, it will cause a setback to the development of digital economy. Too strict supervision will limit the enthusiasm of the development of the communication industry, and further affect the development of digital economy; Too loose supervision is easy to cause market chaos and disrupt market order.


In addition, the trade-off between regulatory is, revenue and release, and repeated consideration between promoting innovation and protecting the long-term investment power of market investors is also facing unprecedented pressure on consumer privacy protection and security protection. To this end, a more balanced, flexible, inclusive and prudent regulatory approach is needed to address it.


In addition to establishing an efficient and open regulatory system in China, it is also necessary to coordinate effectively among the relevant management agencies in different countries. This kind of international coordination and cooperation is essential for the smooth development of communication technology industry. The network and operation of the communication technology industry are global, and the development of the digital era is also related to the interests of human collective.


In order to manage this global business activity more effectively, the laws and regulations and regulatory initiatives of different countries should be consistent. Of course, national sovereignty gives governments the right to adopt the regulatory strategies that are most suitable for their own jurisdiction. However, in terms of self-interest, countries that align their regulatory system with the system of their major international partners will benefit from this international coordination. Especially in the implementation of laws and regulations on computer crime and digital economy, this international coordination will become an important factor to effectively achieve the regulatory objectives.


Another key to the future is that regulation of the field of communication technology must be effectively integrated with all major public policy objectives and motions. In each country, the communications technology industry is actually intricate linked to other economic, political and social activities.


In this widely connected environment, the implementation of regulatory behaviors and regulations for the communication technology industry has a profound impact on all individuals, groups and activities using communication technology. Therefore, the effective coordination between regulatory strategies in the field of communication technology and other major public policy objectives of the national government is also very important.


In the digital economy era, information technology has brought new challenges such as overlapping responsibilities and increasing supervision objects while accelerating the development and deepening the industrial integration and innovation.


To maximize the potential of digital economy, only by establishing a more clear regulatory mechanism with clear authority and responsibility, closer cooperation, from cross departmental collaborative domestic supervision to global information and communication cooperation supervision, and exploring an efficient and transparent international dialogue mechanism, can we really turn the regulatory advantage into development advantage.


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