Explaining the International Infrastructure of Global Telecommunications: Why Government Ownership Determines a Country's Position in Interstate Communications Networks
Open AccessInternational telecommunications infrastructure, the physical cables that connect countries and continents, carry over 99% of the world’s international communications. Starting with telegrams in the mid-1800s transmitted over several hours, these cables have become more sophisticated over time to carry voice calls and now Internet traffic between countries almost instantaneously. Although difficult to recognize in North America and Europe, the network structure of these cables determines the speed and robustness of Internet connectivity in all countries, which results in political implications for their placement and use. In this dissertation, I argue that major powers with the financial and technical resources to build their own international infrastructure and establish themselves as a hub should seek to do so, but that differences in the ownership structure of a nation’s telecommunications sector changes how easy it is for a government to reach this goal. While state-owned enterprises can directly incorporate the security and political concerns of their government to maximize their country’s Independence and Control over others, they lack the long-term viability to build their own global network and challenge the most central countries. Partially-state owned enterprises are hampered in their connections to other states by a sensitivity to both the political and financial costs that come with more risky connections. Counter-intuitively, it is only through fully privatized firms, which focus on maximizing their Access, that a country can grow its network without limit and become a central hub for telecommunications and reap the political and security benefits that come with that status. I evaluate this argument with a close case study of American and French actions to topple British telegraph dominance from the early 1890s to 1914, a statistical analysis of cables laid around the world for the last 40 years, and a closer analysis of China’s actions over the last 25 years.
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