Telecoms for all: the French Telecommunications Administration (DGT) as architect of innovation

Abstract

The roll-out of the French telephone network in the 1970s is analysed with the insight gained from an examination of recently accessible presidential and personal archives covering the period. The key aspects of financing, strategic control and organisational integration are highlighted and the latter two aspects are examined in detail. Trade-offs were necessary to reconcile the need for rapid deployment with the desire to build a sustainable French telecommunications equipment industry. An internal re-organisation of the French telecommunications administration (the DGT) and the industrial restructuring of the equipment industry significantly altered the process for the development of innovations in the emerging digital landscape. Understanding the details of the decisions taken, the motivation behind them and their impact in terms of the innovation process is potentially useful to all public policy makers seeking to ensure that domestic actors develop sustainable strategic positions in future communications technologies.