PSTN operators

The task of building the networks and selling services to customers fell to the network operators. The first company to be incorporated to provide PSTN services was the Bell Telephone Company in the United States.

In some countries however, the job providing telephone networks fell to government as the investment required was very large and the provision of telephone service was increasingly becoming an essential public utility. For example, the General Post Office in the United Kingdom brought together a number of private companies to form a single nationalised company.

In recent decades however, these state monopolies were broken up or sold off through privatization.

Regulation of the PSTN

In most countries, the central government has a regulator dedicated to monitoring the provision of PSTN services in that country. Their tasks may be for example to ensure that end customers are not over-charged for services where monopolies may exist. They may also regulate the prices charged between the operators to carry each others traffic.