Telecommunications Act of 1996
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is federal law in the United States . It was the first major revision of American telecommunications law since the Communications Act of 1934. It was passed by the 104th Congress on January 3, 1996 and signed by President Bill Clinton on February 8, 1996.
The law met with strong criticism from network activists and was the cause of the declaration of independence of cyberspace by John Perry Barlow , a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation .
content
The law regulates:
- Radio broadcasts from television and radio stations
- Cable provider
- Satellite provider
- Cellular and landline companies .
The aim of the law was the lifting of restrictions on competition and the intensification of competition. To this end, market barriers were removed that had previously prevented direct competition between providers. For example, competition between local telephone providers has now been made possible.
The act resulted in a number of corporate mergers , including:
- the acquisition of Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI) by AT&T
- the merger of Bell Atlantic (now Verizon Communications ) and NYNEX
- the merger of Southwestern Bell and Verizon to form SBC Communications which Ameritech later bought
- the merger of MCI Communications and WorldCom to form MCI WorldCom
- the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE to form Verizon .
The aim of the law to increase competition could not be achieved. Rather, the market power of individual providers increased. Part of the law was also the Communications Decency Act , which originally aimed to regulate pornography on the Internet.
literature
- Max D. Paglin, A Legislative History of the Communications Act of 1936 , Oxford University Press, New York 1989
- Dale E. Lehman, Dennis Weisman, The Telecommunications Act of 1996: The "Costs" of managed competition , Boston / Dordrecht / London 2000, ISBN 0-7923-7957-8
Web links
- Legal text (PDF) (239 kB)
- Analysis of the law and its effects (English)