Ten Years Ago... After a Year Of Law, Scant Competition

After a Year Of Law, Scant Competition
[SOURCE: New York Times 12/23/1996, AUTHOR: Mark Landler]
In the year after the Telecommunications Act of 1996 became law, the cable television industry largely abandoned its foray into the telephone business. The regional phone companies shelved their efforts to get into television. And the three big long-distance carriers put through their steepest rate increases in several years. "If we're supposed to be on the road to new services and declining rates, we're off to a horrible start,'' said Gene Kimmelman, the co-director of Consumers Union. The Federal Communications Commission released its second major set of proposals on fostering competition in telecommunications. But critics of the Commission said its rules were the primary reason that so little competition had taken hold. Several experts in deregulation said, though, that the criticisms of the 1996 law, or the way it is taking effect, were somewhat misplaced. The retreats and about-faces were not caused solely by flaws in the law, they argued. The companies themselves failed to predict the cost of their new ventures and overestimated the capabilities of the technology. Caught up in the mania of the digital age, some executives simply lost their grip on reality.
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