After a decade of unparalleled growth, hundreds of thousands of employees suddenly lost their jobs in the global Telecoms sector during the first years of the new millennium. Such a dramatic downturn was unexpected, so what were the main contributing factors?

1. The technology constantly changes and technological innovations are constantly turned into attractive services for the end user. The present convergence between technologies is sometimes called a 'paradigm shift`.

2. Users (private people and enterprises) have got unparalleled power as a result of de-regulation: how does the industry predict and determine what users want and what they are willing to spend on Telecom services?

3. The Telecom business has exposed sharply fluctuating expectations and investment levels, which seems to be a key explanation factor.

So how can this book help you to understand changing telecommunications? Written with a top-down approach it appreciates the demands from investors and shareholders regarding return and recognizes that the business plan becomes a key tool. Disregarding temporary investment volatility and ultimately providing a holistic 'telecom map' including techno-economics and user perception, it contains the following key features:

• Presents an integrated approach to business and technology with the network serving as a tool to implement a service and business plan
• Stresses the importance and the understanding of the end user and the offered services in order to successfully align expectations and real demand
• Favors an end-to-end (e2e) technical approach and acknowledges that this is what the user perceives and pays for
• Features chapter objectives, several reference models, comprehensive glossary and a top-down portal type structure to enhance learning

This volume will be an invaluable tool for all those needing a broad and complete view of the telecommunications industry, ranging from managers and planning staff with operators, service providers, network and terminal vendors, business analysts and investors to engineers and students.