Telecommunications Act of 1996

Telecommunications Act of 1996

Other short titles	Communications Decency Act of 1996
Long title	An Act to promote competition and reduce regulation in order to secure lower prices and higher quality services for telecommunications consumers and encourage the rapid deployment of new telecommunications technologies.
Nicknames	Communications Act of 1995
Enacted by	the 104th United States Congress
Effective	February 8, 1996
Citations
Public law	104-104
Statutes at Large	110 Stat. 56
Codification
Acts amended	Communications Act of 1934
Titles amended	47 U.S.C.: Telegraphy
U.S.C. sections amended	47 U.S.C. ch. 5, subch. VI § 609 47 U.S.C. ch. 5, subch. II § 251 et seq. 47 U.S.C. ch. 5, subch. I § 151 et seq. 47 U.S.C. ch. 5, subch. II § 271 et seq.
Legislative history
Introduced in the Senate as www.congress.gov/bill/104th-congress/senate-bill/652 by Larry Pressler (R-SD) on March 30, 1995 Committee consideration by Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Passed the Senate on June 15, 1995 (81-18 Roll call vote 268, via Senate.gov) Passed the House on October 12, 1995 (passed without objection) Reported by the joint conference committee on January 31, 1996; agreed to by the House on February 1, 1996 (414-16 Roll call vote 025, via Clerk.House.gov) and by the Senate on February 1, 1996 (91-5 Roll call vote 8, via Senate.gov) Signed into law by President Bill Clinton on February 8, 1996

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was the first significant overhaul of telecommunications law in more than sixty years, amending the Communications Act of 1934. The Act, signed by President Bill Clinton, represented a major change in American telecommunication law, since it was the first time that the Internet was included in broadcasting and spectrum allotment. One of the most controversial titles was Title 3 ("Cable Services"), which allowed for media cross-ownership. According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the goal of the law was to "let anyone enter any communications business -- to let any communications business compete in any market against any other." The legislation's primary goal was deregulation of the converging broadcasting and telecommunications markets. However, the law's regulatory policies have been questioned, including the effects of dualistic re-regulation of the communications market

Previously, the Communications Act of 1934 (“1934 Act”) was the statutory framework for U.S. communications policy, covering telecommunications and broadcasting. The 1934 Act created the FCC, the agency formed to implement and administer the economic regulation of the interstate activities of the telephone monopolies and the licensing of spectrum used for broadcast and other purposes. The Act left most regulation of intrastate telephone services to the states.

In the 1970s and 1980s, a combination of technological change, court decisions, and changes in U.S. policy permitted competitive entry into some telecommunications and broadcast markets. In this context, the 1996 Telecommunications Act was designed to allow fewer, but larger corporations, to operate more media enterprises within a sector (such as Clear Channel's dominance in radio), and to expand across media sectors (through relaxation of cross-ownership rules), thus enabling massive and historic consolidation of media in the United States. These changes amounted to a near-total rollback of New Deal market regulation.

The 1996 Act's stated objective was to open up markets to competition by removing regulatory barriers to entry: The conference report refers to the bill “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”. Congress attempted to create a regulatory framework for the transition from primarily monopoly provision to competitive provision of telecommunications services.

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