Background of Telecommunications Act of 1996.
On February 1, 1996, after more than a year of serious negotiations and political wrangling, Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Former President, Clinton, signed the Act on February 8, 1996. The Act is basically a rewrite of the Telecommunications Act of 1934. This Act had a big effect on the Telecommunications industries, from local to long distance telephone services, to cable television, broadcasting and equipment manufacturing.
It was a watershed event in the development of the United States communications industry. For decades, communication policy indicated that ownership and services had restrictions that maintained protected monopolies of both the state and federal levels that were set largely by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), state Public Utility Commissions (PUCs), and the federal courts enforcement of the 1984 antitrust consent decree that dismantled the Bell System. With the Act, Congress has reasserted primacy in setting U.S. communications policy, and has set a course that clearly adopts competition among, Local telephone companies, long distance providers, and cable companies with each other and all telecommunications markets. It also reconfirms the U.S. commitment to universal service by helping schools connect all classrooms, libraries, and hospital s to the information by the end of the decade.
The Act provisions fall into five categories that are:.
1. Telephone Service.
2. Telecommunications Equipment Manufacturing.
3. Cable Television.
4. Radios and Television broadcasting.
5. Internet Online Computer Services.
Telecommunications Deregulation.
To develop the economic and planning knowledge you need to successfully bring new products to the market in the potentially unstable environment of the telecommunications deregulation.
The deregulation of the telecommunications industry created an onslaught of competition in the long distance markets.