Spectrum Offers a Path to Broadband Competition

With the impending acquisition of the two largest long-distance phone companies by the two largest Bell operating companies, it’s clear that the telecom wars surrounding the 1996 Telecommunications Act are drawing to a close. Last year’s decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to remand local loop access rules back to the Federal Communications Commission, and the Bush administration’s decision not to appeal it, effectively ended the prospect of local wireline telephone competition. The mergers are regrettable, but they are just the final shovels of dirt on the efforts of Congress to engender local telephone competition in the 1996 act. As one leading telecom analyst said, “This is the end of World War I — the Bells vs. AT&T and MCI. Now, World War II, among the phone, cable and tech companies, is about to begin.”