Numerous business and hi-technology analysts view the Telecommunications Act of 1996 as the first major review of the telecommunication laws and procedures in almost 62 years since the Communications Act of 1934 was enforced. The goal of this new regulation is to provide an unhampered access of the new players to the telecommunication business and guarantee them fair rules of competition in any market and against any competitor while at the same time making the communicational services to be nationwide accessible and affordable. Considering the expected effect of the new act, which was supposed to drastically change the way we live, work, study, and simply interact with each other, it turns out as no surprise that the legislative process was surrounded by many governmental and telecom business issues and speculations. A Global media giant Viacom Inc. remarked Telecommunication Act’s procompetitive and deregulatory nature is good for the telecommunications industry, since it will allow cable, broadcast and telephone companies to enter into new markets with greater certainty and less government constraints. The new bill has left the major players of the market virtually unarmed against newcomers and start-ups. The previously successful method of dealing with impudent intruders to this profitable place by the means of mergers and acquisitions has suddenly become useless.
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The authorities of every administrative level in the United States immediately understood the future impact of the Act. The Vice President of those times Albert Gore personally fought for the bill on the behalf of the American people. President Bill Clinton in his speech at the signing ceremony for the Telecommunications Act on the 8th of February 1996 at the Library of Congress expressed his joy and thanked all the parties that participated in bills approval for their eagerness to cooperation despite many conflicting concerns (Clinton).
It must be noted that in spite of many years of preparation of the Act the Congress passed it with outstanding promptness and dispatch contrary to the tradition of overextended congressional decision-making over major issues. The Telecom Act became an indicator of what can be done when Democrats and Republicans work together in a matter of genuine cooperation to bring forth the interests of the society and lead us all to a brighter future. One of the main reasons the new bill had to be accepted as soon as possible is the need of American society in custom censorship and protection from mass-media influence.
As one of the solutions the Act proposed to implement the so-called V-chips that would allow the families to protect themselves from television violence and inappropriate content on the behalf of their own determination. In order to more effectively describe the procedures in the Act, many entertainment industry leaders came to the White House to discuss and agree on the common rules for censorship. That was a unique example of cooperation between opposite fronts the legislative powers and entertainment businesses. The next reason why the legislative process went faster and smoother than it usually did was due to the effect of the bill on every-day social life of the nation. By social life we mean education, medical services, cultural events. Al Gore addressed the Congressmen to study the future effect of the Act and appealed them to connect (in technological terms) virtually every terminal, either it is a computer in a school lab or a public telephone in the hospital, to the National Information Infrastructure. To insure a responsible approach to the administration of the bill Al Gore in his speech at UCLA Los Angeles, California on the 11th of January 1994 outlined several main principles that should guide the decision-making and legislative concerns of the Congressmen.
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The first principle was to encourage private investments and provide and protect competition, thus involving more parties to the development of the National Information Infrastructure. Must be mentioned that the issue of free competition is far more complex than thought to be at first sight. In this shift from almost state monopoly in the telecommunications business the government had to insure that the rates of the telecom services would be equal across the country (Gore).
Numerous safeguards had to be considered and developed to protect the end-user of both the megapolis and small rural town from unfair pricing for the service. The regulations and reviews of this framework had to be transferred from the courts to the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission, who were to examine and approve the process of standards setting for the interexchange services – most notably long distance communication among Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC).
The next principle of the future Act had to satisfy the preposition of the provision of open access to the network by any physical or juridical person.
The role of the government in this issue was to insure the unified standards of informational exchange. The new legislative package had to contain the provisions aimed to insure that each initial information carrier has the access to his users final point of destination without any barriers. All service providers must secure interconnects and nondiscriminatory access to each others facilities on the mandatory basis. Now, since the border between the telephone and cable companies became less visible, the FCC as the main authority has to develop the procedure that will prevent such unfair burden of regulatory impositions. To achieve such a result the new form of the compromise was offered to market players. The company is either to be regulated by the Telecom Act, or the so-called Title VII regulation, which was to free the company from the danger of conflicting or duplicative regulations (Emeritz 99).
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In return, service providers had to agree on the common rules of the play on the provision of their services and facilities to others on nondiscriminatory basis. The aforementioned idea depicts the next principle of the new Telecommunications Act flexibility of the government regulations, with a determined shift of the procedure and policymaking and eventually the responsibility for their consequences to the FCC (Emeritz 125).
In total the new Telecommunications Act of 1996 has changed the rulemaking procedures and developed new regulations in more than 70 distinct areas of the telecom business (US Congress 83).
Having understood all of the future benefits of the bill, it is no wonder that it (sent to the President as S.652) went smoothly through the Congress in February of 1996. The votes went 91-5 in the Senate and 414-16 in the House of the Representatives.
Bibliography:
President William J.
Clinton. Remarks by the President at the Signing Ceremony for the Telecommunications Act Conference Report. Library of Congress, Washington, DC. 8 Feb. 1996. Vice President Albert Gore.
Remarks for Delivery by Vice President at Royce Hall University of California in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA. 11 Jan. 1994. United States Congress. Telecommunications Act of 1996. 104th Congress, 2nd session. S.
Res. 652. Washington GPO, 1996. Emeritz, Bob. The Telecommunications Act of 1996: Law and Legislative History. New York, Pike and Fischer Inc., 1996..
