IntroductionThe origins of the electronic communications market date back to the development and operation of the telegraph around the mid-19th century. An excellent account of the development of the telegraph and some of the lessons it can bring to the modern world can be found in Tom Standage's book, The Victorian Internet (readily available via Amazon). The telephone was invented (allegedly) by Alexander Graham Bell who in 1876 was granted a US patent (174465) which, in just six pages, specified what are still recognizable today the main features of the telephone system. You can view a copy of the patent on the USPTO website. Superlatives are almost exhausted when describing Bell's patent. It is the most controversial sentence of all time, with more than 600 lawsuits challenging its validity. Perhaps the most serious challenge came from the Western Union Telegraph Company, which held a dominant position in the telegraph industry. This claim was settled in 1879. Western Union accepted the validity of Bell's patent and agreed to stay out of the telephone business. In order to maintain Western's key telegraph business, Bell agreed not to use the telephone business for "the transmission of general commercial messages, stock quotes, or information for sale or publication in competition with Western Union activities. Other challenges persisted, but in what was only the second most important event of the year 1888, its validity was upheld by the United States Supreme Court (The Telephone Cases 1888 US 1) in this which would be the longest judgment rendered in the history of American patents (approximately 197,000 words). The patent has often been described as the most valuable grant of all time. The concept of ...... middle of paper ...... the government retained a special share or retained a "golden share" which gave it veto power over certain aspects of the business. To a large extent, therefore, competition in the UK market was initially between two organizations with strong links to the public sector. It was announced in 1983 that no further licenses would be issued to long distance fixed link operators for a period of 7 years. Indeed, to encourage Mercury to invest in the development of a network, it would be necessary to ensure a stable competitive environment. It was therefore a move from monopoly to duopoly, although from this stage it was recognized that the emerging mobile communications market would offer alternatives to traditional fixed link operations. Licenses for the creation of mobile networks were granted to Cellnet and Vodafone in 1983.