Telecommunications Law in the Internet Age

CHAPTER 3

The Telecommunications Act of 1996

“… to promote competition and reduce regulation in order to secure lower prices and higher quality services for American telecommunications consumers and encourage the rapid deployment of new telecommunications technologies.”

Purpose of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.^{1 2}

THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT OF 1996, PASSED BY CONGRESS ON February 1, 1996,³ and signed into law on February 8, 1996 by President William J. Clinton, was the most extensive change in U.S. communications law in the 62 years since the Communications Act of 1934. It altered the structure and operation of the industry in at least four significant ways. First, it opened the local telephone markets to competition, completely reversing ...