Telecommunications Mergers
COMPETITION POLICY AND MERGER ANALYSIS IN DEREGULATED AND NEWLY COMPETITIVE INDUSTRIES, Ch. 4, Edward Elgar Pub, 2008
32 Pages Posted: 12 Jun 2008
Date Written: 2008
Abstract
Telecommunications mergers are at once a historical mirror and a harbinger of the legal future. Since the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, no significant telecommunications merger has failed to receive regulatory approval in the United States. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 has accelerated the trend toward consolidation and concentration. Having devoted most of its energy on issues doomed to become technologically and economically obsolete, the Act failed to anticipate the technological conditions (especially the emergence of the Internet) that drove telecommunications carriers to consolidate. Nevertheless, possible avenues for reform remain open should the federal government ever conclude that the anticompetitive potential of telecommunications mergers outweighs their salutary effects.
Keywords: telecommunications, mergers, FCC, Telecommunications Act, Bell operating company, cable industry, Clayton Act, actual potential competition, benchmarking, 251, 271, 652
JEL Classification: D43, K21, K23, L13, L43, L96, O33
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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