Recent evidences indicate that privatization leads to enormous benefits to society almost without undesirable costs. However, stakeholders of privatization seem not to satisfy the resulting performance of privatized firms. Using data from 35 firms privatized from 31 countries during the period 1980-2003, this research follows long-run operating performance of privatized telecommunication operators up to 10 years and study costs and benefits of privatization. Privatization is followed by a 2.65 percentage-point increase in the 5-year mean ratio of operating-income-to-sales as firms catch up with global standard of industry-matched control groups, and by a 4.2 percentage-point decrease in the next 5-year mean ratio. Indeed, previously documented striking achievements were mere reflection of the world business cycle, the pace of economic activity in general, during the last three decades.