USC to Teach Telecommunications

A Center for Telecommunications Management, focusing on intensive study in telecommunications for top executives in that field, has been organized by USC.

The center, its organizers say, will help prepare the telecommunications industry “for a shift from a highly protected, public-utility base to one of a competitive, dynamic industry with unparalleled opportunities and challenges for the coming decades.”

The center will offer a nine-month academic program leading to award of a degree or certificate aimed specifically at senior executives and officers of telecommunications carriers, users, policy-makers and suppliers.

“The program centers on regulatory, technological, competitive and customer changes and their impact on telecommunications products, markets, corporate culture and profitability of the industry,” according to Jagdish N. Sheth, director of the center, a division of the USC School of Business Administration.

Other activities will include organization of an annual international conference hosted by telephone companies, consulting services for privately sponsored research, and publication of a newsletter, a journal devoted to exploring strategic issues facing top management, and original research.

Sheth said charter memberships sponsoring the center are being offered until April 15. The cost is $2,500 per company annually for the first three years.