Perhaps the typical process when writing a book is to start with some papers on a topic and then eventually get ready to do it. However, we did not have any papers to start with. The Dutch telecommunications and post authority, Opta, had asked the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis to undertake a study on competition and regulation in the market for fixed telecommunications. That's how we got involved: Paul as a staff member of CPB, and Martin as an external consultant. In 2000, the project resulted in the CPB publication “Competition and Regulation in Telecommunications Markets,” a report primarily aimed at regulators. From the beginning, we could draw on contributions to the literature, in particular by Mark Armstrong, Michael Carter, Jean-Jaques Laffont, Patrick Rey, Jean Tirole, and Julian Wright, who had analyzed competition in telecommunications. Our focus, however, was different from their work in that we were not primarily interested in mature markets, but rather in the process of competition that starts from an asymmetric market environment. This, we found, was what the regulator was particularly concerned with.

In the process of working on the report for Opta, we asked ourselves whether, based on the experience that was gained, we should write something more academic, addressing a wider audience. Put briefly, we decided to write this book.