Law Commons^™

Deregulating Telecommunications In Internet Time, James B. Speta

Washington and Lee Law Review

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 has yielded more litigation and less local competition than its supporters expected or intended. Calls for its reform are multiplying. In this Article, Professor Septa diagnoses the 1996 Act's failings and prescribes a framework for reform. The successful deregulations of the transportation industries and of long-distance telecommunications (precedents the 1996 Act sought to follow) demonstrate that the Act should have taken additional steps to promote intermodal telecommunications competition. Transportation deregulation successfully prompted competition where (as in the case of airlines and trucking) multiple firms could compete on an intramodal basis or where (as in the …