No Pain, No Gain: Rethinking the Telecoms Crash1

This paper reflects upon the boom and bust of the telecommunications industry from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. Unlike the conspicuous burst of the dotcom bubble, the telecoms crash came quietly, but turned out to be bigger and more catastrophic. This paper argues that bounded rationality, decision making under uncertainty and the focus on short-term individual interest all played a significant role in the telecoms crash. However, this painful crash also had its positive effects. Executives, specialists, regulators and government policy makers should pay more attention to the fundamentals and balance the need for both short-term and long-term interests in approaching the coming challenges in the fast-changing telecoms industry.