Abstract
The United States Congress recently enacted sweeping legislation to overhaul the rules governing competition in telecommunications services. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 (see CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, 1996) is the first major rewrite of the Communications Act of 1934. It also supersedes the 1982 antitrust consent decree that broke up AT&T and barred the seven new regional Bell operating companies (“Bells”) from manufacturing equipment and offering long-distance service.
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the seminar on “Energy and Telecoms Regulation in Transition Countries,” The Center for Economic Development, Bratislava, Slovakia, October 1995. The views in this paper do not purport to represent those of any United States government agency. I have learned a lot from discussions with Tim Brennan, Gerald Brock, Richard Clarke, Bill Corbett, Robert Crandall, Tom Hazlett, Evan Kwerel, Roger Noll, George Slover, Lisa Sockett, Joe Stiglitz, Jean Tirole, Scott Wallsten, Leonard Waverman, John Windhausen, Peyton Wynns and many others. I wish I could blame them for any errors, but unfortunately must take full responsibility.
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Schwartz, M. (1997). Telecommunications Reform in the United States: Promises and Pitfalls. In: Welfens, P.J.J., Yarrow, G. (eds) Telecommunications and Energy in Systemic Transformation. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60519-2_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60519-2_7
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