| Term Paper Title | The Telecommunications Act Of 1996 |
| # of Words | 774 |
| # of Pages (250 words per page double spaced) | 3.1 |
The Telecommunications Act of 1996
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is a bill that President Clinton signed on February 8, 1996. The bill was passed for the deregulation of all segments of the Telecommunications industry. This would allow telephone companies, broadcasters, and cable operators to enter each other's markets. The overall intent was to create competition, to liberate and to open the door for the next major break through in the Telecommunications industry.
The bundling of different products will become the norm in the future of the Telecommunications industry, but it will take a few years. Federal judges have struck down key provisions of the telecommunications act. "Raising questions about the soundness of Congress' plan to unleash competition in the vast telecommunications market." (Gruenwald) Telephone companies, broadcasters, and cable operators have been entering each other's markets, but the process has been slow. "The long-distance carriers have the marketing skills, the brand awareness, and the technological know how to put together packages of local, long distance, data, and video services. In the long-term, that puts them in better shape to become 21st century 'supercarriers'- single sources for all communications services." (Catherine) Many mergers and shifts have occur in the first few years after the act; for instance, Bell Atlantic and Nynex merged in 1997 only a year and some months after the Act was signed. Deregulation has benefited some consumers tremendously by lowering prices in Telecommunications industry in certain areas of the United States. "As carriers begin to market bundles of communications services, consumers should benefit. The communications companies say low-cost services will offset high-cost ones in a package. And in just about every service, competion and more efficient technology should push prices down." (Arnst) Competition was the main reason for the telecommunications act of 1996 and liberalizing the telecommunications Industry was the first step to bring about competion. The short-term effect of the Telecom Act caused restructurings, mergers and rearranging of industries. Cable operators, Broadcasters and other businesses have entered each other's markets in the telecommunications industry. For example, ATT now has an Internet Service Provider and they are planning on providing local telephone service in the future. The idea is that all major players in the ...Read entire document
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