luable. In addition, telecommunications has traditionally been one of the most regulated industries both nationally and internationally: indeed, the incumbent monopoly telephone operator was government owned until recent years. Although the industry has been deregulated, still the telecommunications portfolio is usually represented by a senior government minister, and one or more departments who regulate and monitor telecommu- nications service provision. At the international level, telecommunications technologies were one of the earliest to be standardised across national boundaries as interoperability was necessary for international trade. Nowadays, the development and ratification of international standards is generally accepted as a prerequisite for the success of a new telecommunications system. Such standardisation is done under the auspices of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Modern telecommunications, if marked by the inventions of telegraphy and telephony, date back to the mid-to-late 19th century. Despite this, usage of telecommunication services was Introduction TOP 5 TECHNOLOGIES Electrical machinery, Computer technology Digital communication Medical technology Measurement apparatus, energy 14,897 14,684 14,059 11,920 7,952 (+10.9%) (+18.0%) (+11.3%) (+4.8%) (+8.8%) TOP 15 PCT APPLICATION The Japanese company Panasonic Corporation was the largest filer in 2013. Figure 1.6 Patent application filed under the PCT in 2013. Reproduced with permission of World Intellectual Property Organization [9] quite limited until very recently. Access to these services became widespread in developed countries by the second half of the 20th century. However, the vast majority of the population in developing countries had little or no access to telephony services, nor much use for telegraphy. Universal access to voice and message transmission only became possible with the introduction of inexpensive mobile telephony and internet systems and services. Figure 1.7 shows the growth in the number of mobile ph