The effects of mergers on the media marketplace have historically failed to live up to dire predictions. Mergers are often a response to technological upheaval and turbulence in the media industry and firms should be allowed to experiment with such alternative business models with the intent on...

The paper focuses on the cost characteristics of Internet technology and on the question whether there are monopolistic bottlenecks in Internet services which justify regulatory intervention into the market. The analysis is prompted by a discussion which followed the MCI and Worldcom merger in...