Telecommunications Act Of 1996

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is a United States federal law enacted by the 104th United States Congress on January 3, 1996, and signed into law on February 8, 1996, by President Bill Clinton.[1][2] It primarily amended Chapter 5 of Title 47 of the United States Code. Heavily supported and lobbied for by major corporations in the telecommunications sector,[3] the act was the first significant overhaul of United States telecommunications law in more than sixty years. It amended the Communications Act of 1934, and represented a major change in that law, because it was the first time that the Internet was added to American regulation of broadcasting and telephony.[4].
The stated intention of the law was to "let anyone enter any communications business – to let any communications business compete in any market against any other."[5] In practice, it gave way to one of the largest consolidations of the telecommunications sector in history - as such, it is often described as an attempt to deregulate the American broadcasting and telecommunications markets due to technological convergence.[6] The Telecommunications Act of 1996 has been praised for incentivizing the expansion of networks and the offering of new services across the United States.[7] At the same time, it is often criticized for enabling market concentration (oligopoly) in the big-media and telecommunications industries, going against its very stated intention by indirectly restricting newcomer access to broadcasting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996