Telecommunications Act of 1996
The Telecommunication Act 1996 and Communications Act of 1934 had two major changes: the new act was less technologically biased and offered less regulation.
This act determined the basis of media regulation by its contents, not a technological standard. Title V in Telecommunication Act of 1996, “Obscenity and Violence”, is a good example of this; Title V set the standard for regulating media contents.
The Communications Act of 1934 is argued by some to have created monopolies, such as the case of AT&T. The FCC recognized AT&T as a “natural monopoly” during the 1930s in the Communications Act of 1934. Because of these effects, the FCC designed the Communications Act 1996 “to provide for a pro-competitive, de-regulatory national policy framework designed to accelerate rapidly private sector deployment of advanced information technologies and services to all Americans by opening all telecommunications markets to competition…” The Telecommunication Act of 1996 also added and changed some rules to account for the emerging internet.
The FCC derives its jurisdiction to facilitate the deployment of broadband to Americans in Section 706 in the Telecommunications act of 1996. In this section the code states that the FCC is to “encourage the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans.”
They currently want to advocate the following objectives:
- Broaden the deployment of broadband technologies
- Define broadband to include any platform capable of transmitting high-bandwidth intensive services
- Ensure harmonized regulatory treatment of competing broadband services
- Encourage and facilitate an environment that stimulates investment and innovation in broadband technologies and services
- Snippet from Wikipedia: Telecommunications Act of 1996
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is a United States federal law enacted by the 104th United States Congress on January 3, 1996, and signed into law on February 8, 1996 by President Bill Clinton. It primarily amended Chapter 5 of Title 47 of the United States Code. The act was the first significant overhaul of United States telecommunications law in more than sixty years, amending the Communications Act of 1934, and represented a major change in that law, because it was the first time that the Internet was added to American regulation of broadcasting and telephony.
The primary goal of the law was to "let anyone enter any communications business – to let any communications business compete in any market against any other." Thus, the statute is often described as an attempt to deregulate the American broadcasting and telecommunications markets due to technological convergence.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 has been praised for incentivizing the expansion of networks and the offering of new services across the United States, though it is often criticized for enabling market concentration in the media and telecommunications industries.
Telecommunications Act of 1996