Legislative Background
Recent Action on Broadband Deregulation
Under the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the regional Bell operating companies (BOCs) must show that they have opened up their local telephone markets to competitors before they can be granted permission to enter the long-distance market. Many now argue that the Act, which was debated and passed during a time when the Internet was in its infancy, did not anticipate the need for a regulatory framework that would cover new services to be provided over the Nation’s telephone lines. Tauzin-Dingell Bill. On April 24, 2001, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin (LA-R) and Representative John D. Dingell (MI-D), the…
