The central argument of this book is that it is innovation that drives the ICT ecosystem, innovation in products and services, technologies, forms of organisation and markets. It is for this reason that government policy-makers and regulators involved in the governance of this system should have as one of their main focuses the process of innovation and the factors which facilitate it. In this appendix a brief account of the evolution of the ICT ecosystem in the post-war period is provided, paying particular attention to the key innovations that have driven the system and their ramifications.

The importance of new and improved technologies

What are the forces that drive change in the new ICT ecosystem? When Joseph Schumpeter asked this question, not for this particular sector but for the capitalist economy as a whole, the conclusion that he came to was that ‘new combinations’ constitute the engine of change. By ‘new combinations’ Schumpeter meant new products, processes, forms of organisation and markets. These new combinations, introduced by entrepreneurs and the innovations of companies, unleashed – as Schumpeter famously observed – waves of creation–destruction that subvert the old and herald the new.

Schumpeterian new combinations have been a major driving force in the ICT sector since its inception. The origins of the communications part of this sector go back to the telegraph and telephone.