Out of the Telechasm

OUT OF THE TELECHASM
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff]
[Commentary] Ten years after Congress declared it was "deregulating" the telecom industry, our Representatives and Senators are at it again. Both Houses of Congress are drawing up legislation to address some of the absurdities that resulted from the last effort at reform. The WSJ would like to report this as a hopeful sign. But this is Congress, and aside from one noble if likely doomed effort by Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), the prospects don't look bright. DeMint has drafted legislation to sweep away conflicting and nonsensical regulatory regimes and treat telecom the way it ought to be treated -- like any other competitive industry. It says, in effect, that telecom companies should be regulated on the basis of fair competition standards used everywhere else in the economy. Rather than trying to legislate competitive outcomes, as the 1996 Telecommunications Act did, Congress could allow open-field running save for anyone who violates antitrust rules. For years, regulators and "consumer advocates" have argued that telecom is "too important" to be left to market forces. Something like the opposite is closer to the truth. In a digital age, telecom is too important for policy to hinge on arbitrary distinctions between "information" and "telecommunications," or to be held hostage to thousands of rent-seeking municipal agencies. It's time for a rethink, and the more fundamental, the better.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114531696529928112.html?mod=todays_us_op...
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