Convergence auditing: The context of improved billing service – with reference to the experience of British Telecom

It has been commonly agreed that convergence of computing technology with that of telecommunications in the early 1980s has brought a revolution to the telecommunications sector (Hudson, 1997). The traditional pattern of natural monopoly is disappearing in more and more countries, while all incumbent telecommunications operators are facing increasingly fierce competition from new market entrants. To defend their leading positions in the market, these incumbent operators are vigorously restructuring their development strategy to a more market-originated one. The drastic improvement of British Telecom's (BT's) billing system is one of the most evident proofs of this change.