Politics and telecommunications.

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Author: Pressler, Larry
• Date: 01 June 2006

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 ("1996 Act") has frequently been cited as landmark legislation. In fact in Tom Friedman's bestselling book, The World Is Flat, cites the 1996 Act as the basis for many recent developments. Friedman suggests that the 1996 Act allowed certain activities which resulted in much capital being raised in the 1990s, which resulted in the laying of huge amounts of fiber-optic cable to such places as India and China. Many of the companies involved got into serious financial trouble in about 2002, but the effect of a huge amount of new technology being bought and installed around the world has resulted in a "flat world."

There has been clamoring almost since the day the 1996 Act was passed to update it. There have been endless speeches about its shortcomings. There have been successful political campaigns run on the basis of repealing it, and there is almost no editorial comment anywhere praising it.

Conversely, President Bill Clinton has called it the most...