Digital Crossroads: American Telecommunications Policy in the Internet Age.

• Author: Montanye, James A.
• Position: Book review

Digital Crossroads: American Telecommunications Policy in the Internet Age By Jonathan E. Nuechterlein and Philip J. Weiser Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005. Pp. xvii, 670. $40.00 cloth.

Revolutionary improvements in computing and information technology, falling prices for equipment and services, and rapidly changing industry structures have turned telecommunications markets upside down.

Twenty years ago virtually all telephone service was provided over copper wires. Today, more than 160 million wireless telephones are in use, exceeding the number of traditional wireline subscriptions. Wireless and Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services are eroding wireline demand by 7 percent per year. More Internet subscribers now use broadband access than use dial-up connections.

A similar inversion has occurred in video-distribution markets. Television programs once were distributed as free over-the-air broadcasts. Today, 75 percent of households subscribe to cable TV, and another 10 percent receive direct satellite transmissions. Viewers can look forward to watching digital television on third-generation wireless telephone sets and to receiving streaming video over broadband power-line connections.

Behind these agreeable advances lies a world of regulatory uncertainty. The transition from de jure monopoly and oligopoly to de jure, if not yet de facto, competition, coupled with a technological "convergence" that treats all communications as indistinguishable streams of 1s and 0s, has led unexpectedly to increased federal regulation. Most of this increase occurred after the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which was heralded initially as the most comprehensive deregulatory and competition-enhancing legislation ever enacted. The act is seen today as having failed to accomplish these objectives. A deregulated and fully competitive telecommunications industry remains an abstract vision as pressure mounts for yet another legislative effort to get regulation right.

Digital Crossroads: American Telecommunications Policy in the Internet Age ably documents telecommunications' struggling policy transition from pervasive industry regulation to regulated quasi-competition during a period of rapid technological change. The authors, Jonathan E. Nuechterlein and Philip J. Weiser, bring impressive credentials to this effort. Each is a lawyer and former Supreme Court clerk: Nuechterlein also served as deputy general counsel to the Federal Communications Commission...