This document presents witness testimony and supplemental materials from a Congressional hearing regarding legislation to reform national telecommunications policy. Most of the proposed changes would allow Americans greater freedom to choose among communication products and services. Among the topics this hearing addresses are increasing competitiveness of telephone services, cable rate deregulation, and the removal of government-imposed barriers to new investment in and ownership of broadcasting stations. Testimony is included from: (1) Decker Anstrom, National Cable Television Association; (2) Richard H. Cutler, Small Cable Business Association; (3) U. Bertram Ellis, Jr., Ellis Communications, Inc.; (4) Edward O. Fritts, National Association of Broadcasters; (5) Scott Blake Harris, Federal Communications Commission; (6) Gerald L. Hassell, Bank of New York; (7) Roy Neel, United States Telephone Association; (8) Eli Noam, Columbia Institute for Tele-Information; (9) Preston R. Padden, Fox Broadcasting Co.; (10) Bradley Stillman, Consumer Federation of America; and (11) Jim Waterbury, NBC Affiliates Association. The document also features statements by Senators Larry Pressler, Conrad Burns, and John D. Rockefeller. (BEW)

Ten years ago, the United States stood at the forefront of the Internet revolution. With some of the fastest speeds and lowest prices in the world for high-speed Internet access, the nation was poised to be the global leader in the new knowledge-based economy. Today that global competitive advantage has all but vanished because of a series of government decisions and resulting monopolies that have allowed dozens of countries, including Japan and South Korea, to pass us in both speed and price of broadband. This steady slide backward not only deprives consumers of vital services needed in a competitive employment and business market—it also threatens the economic future of the nation. This important book by leading telecommunications policy expert Susan Crawford explores why Americans are now paying much more but getting much less when it comes to high-speed Internet access. Using the 2011 merger between Comcast and NBC Universal as a lens, Crawford examines how we have created the biggest monopoly since the breakup of Standard Oil a century ago. In the clearest terms, this book explores how telecommunications monopolies have affected the daily lives of consumers and America's global economic standing.

This book contains a key component of the NII 2000 project of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, a set of white papers that contributed to and complements the project's final report, The Unpredictable Certainty: Information Infrastructure Through 2000, which was published in the spring of 1996. That report was disseminated widely and was well received by its sponsors and a variety of audiences in government, industry, and academia. Constraints on staff time and availability delayed the publication of these white papers, which offer details on a number of issues and positions relating to the deployment of information infrastructure.

Advancement of telecommunications and information infrastructure occurs largely through private investment. The government affects the rate and direction of this progress through regulation and public investment. This book presents a range of positions and perspectives on those two classes of policy mechanism, providing a succinct analysis followed by papers prepared by experts in telecommunications policy and applications.

Distributed to some depository libraries in microfiche.