Once again the market gets canned for goverment failure. State intervention disturbs that optimum. Fist uses the peculiar argument that few countries have or intend to have fully privatised telecommunications. He attacks Japan's partial privatisation by saying that it has the highest telephone charges in the world. He goes on to make the false claim that the world's three highest-priced carriers, Japan, Australia and the UK are operate in competitive regimes.
Competition leads to higher prices.
This is dreadful nonsense. A genuinely competitive regime would be a free market. All of these carriers operate in severely hampered markets. Only now, for example, are more companies being allowed to enter the UK's telecommunications market. Having spilt a great deal of ink in attacking the market he then admits that only America stands out as a clear winner for the 'competitive' side.