X-Nico

5 unusual facts about Telecommunications Act of 1996


Common carrier

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 made extensive revisions to the "Title II" provisions regarding common carriers and repealed the judicial 1982 AT&T consent decree (often referred to as the "modification of final judgment" or "MFJ") that effectuated the breakup of AT&T's Bell System.

Customer proprietary network information

The U.S. Telecommunications Act of 1996 granted the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authority to regulate how customer proprietary network information (CPNI) can be used and to enforce related consumer information privacy provisions.

Internet kill switch

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 and subsequent amendments allowed for the vertical integration of telecommunications carriers into the data and information markets which were left unregulated in the legislation.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 deregulated the telecommunications market and allowed for the growth of data carrier services.

KUGN

In 1996, the Federal Communications Commission changed radio station ownership rules to allow companies to own up to six stations in a market (see Telecommunications Act of 1996).


Dolores Sloviter

In 1996 Sloviter was a member of a three-judge panel of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania which heard a challenge to the Communications Decency Act, Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, on grounds that it abridged the free speech provisions of the First Amendment.

National Exchange Carrier Association

After the Telecommunications Act of 1996, NECA became indirectly responsible for the Universal Service Fund (USF) programs through its subsidiary corporation, the Universal Service Administrative Company.

Thomas J. Bliley, Jr.

In that influential role he was a principal author of several important laws including the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act of 1997, the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act and the Financial Modernization Act of 1999, also known as the "Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act."


see also