30 Years of the Telecommunications Act: What Did We Learn?

Thirty years after the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the most important lessons are not about whether the act worked but about regulating and deregulating when nothing works as planned. The act failed on its own terms but succeeded in far more important ways. It did not create the telephone and cable television competition Congress envisioned, yet by dismantling long-standing legal barriers, it unleashed economic and technological forces that are giving us a future no one predicted.

What are the lessons for today’s policymakers and businesses that are confronting technological and economic uncertainties? What types of regulatory paths should be avoided? What types of laws and regulations are essential for the country to successfully move into an unpredictable future?