Telecommunications policy: Growth, globalisation, and geoeconomics from 1977 to 2025

This paper offers a quantitative study of Telecommunications Policy through the scientific output published in the eponymous journal over 1977–2025. Drawing on 2600 articles and reviews indexed in the Web of Science, together with 689 citing policy items recorded in Overton, we document long-run dynamics in knowledge production, geographic participation, collaboration complexity, and the distribution of influence. Beyond descriptive indicators, we model the non-linear evolution of annual series with penalised splines, which formal model comparison prefers decisively over linear, log-linear, and polynomial trends. Internationalisation developed in waves rather than at a constant pace, and by the early 2020s the citation influence of BRICS-based contributions in the journal overtook that of the G7, while the thematic emphases of the two blocs, statistically indistinguishable until the mid-2010s, became measurably different thereafter. Taken together, these movements trace a shift toward a more multipolar configuration of debates in digital and connectivity strategy and regulation.