The paper discusses the transformation of the competitive landscape of telecom sector post-privatization. Price competition is a consistent factor, driven by technological advancements and consumer behaviour. The study explores global variations in the price competitive structure of the telecommunications market, utilizing unsupervised machine learning – topic modelling to analyze research articles. Six topic models reveal key themes, emphasizing the roles of firms, customers, and government entities in the oligopolistic market. The models highlight the impact of entry costs, spectrum license ownership, and quality of service on market players. The impending 5G technology is expected to influence service quality and differentiation. The study highlights the importance of regulation to prevent customer exploitation, given the high switching costs. It also anticipates the evolving competitive landscape with the introduction of novel services like mobile commerce. The analysis contributes to telecom literature by presenting optimized topic models that are both statistically and semantically relevant, shedding light on the industry's current trends and potential future directions.