This fateful period of communications history began just over one year ago when Congress passed the landmark Telecommunications Act. After long debate, Congress courageously opened communications markets to competitors that had been precluded by law or by the absence of procompetitive rules. Since then, the FCC has issued a trilogy of implementing orders that comprise several dozen pages of rules necessary to allow new entrants to share or connect to the existing network of the local telephone companies. Incumbents are now seeking to stay these rules across the board and to reverse Congressional, FCC and state commission decisions in courts and state legislatures. Nevertheless, we're on the eve of competition.
Companies stand poised to enter new markets and to defend vigorously their existing markets.
If by government policy and private zeal we get competition going, the winners will be taxpayers who enjoy the benefits of economic growth, job seekers who have new opportunities for work, entrepreneurs who have new markets in which to make their visions come to reality, financiers who have new ventures to back, consumers who have new choices, and even incumbents who have the chance to be competitors in markets from which they were previously precluded. The ultimate reward will be deregulation of the whole communications sector when competition is real. It is natural in this time of transition from the monopoly paradigm to the competitive regime for firms to explore the possibility of entry into new markets by way of merger. It is natural for firms to ask lawyers what is thinkable and what is unthinkable in the way of such mergers. That happened last week.