One of the most distinctive developments in telecommunications policy over the past few decades has been the increasingly broad array of access requirements regulatory authorities have imposed on local telephone providers. In so doing, policymakers did not fully consider whether the...

One of the most distinctive characteristics of the U.S. telephone system is that it has always been privately owned, in stark contrast to the pattern of government ownership followed by virtually every other nation. What is not widely known is how close the United States came to falling in line...

For the past several decades, U.S. policymakers and the courts have charged a largely deregulatory course with respect to telecommunications. During the initial stages, these decisionmakers responded to technological improvements by narrowing regulation to cover only those portions of industry...