So you did not have the kind of meltdown in the broad equities or in the marketplace, in terms of an impact on employment or economic growth, or any of the other substantial impacts that the IT sector had had on the economy in the previous five years, 1995- 2000. [...] I think it's fair to attribute the commission of all of these sins to all of the players in this meltdown: the carriers, the financiers, the policymakers, and the opinion leaders, people like Blair and I. [...] Some of them go to the question of how are you going to divide the pie? It's not about growing the pie or reducing the cost of producing the pie; it's about who gets into the pie. [...] Some of the insiders in the CLECs and other parts of the industry, the DLECs and the backbone carriers, sold their shares before the decline. [...] But by the same token, we're all the beneficiaries of a lot of the operation of the law of the pleasant surprise.

Despite the meltdown in the stock market - and the carnage in the bankruptcy courts - there still are strong, successful companies in telecom with the resources and the will to invent the future and reignite the economy ... and Verizon is one of them. [...] The decisions that will be made this year about telecom policies will influence the flow of billions of dollars' worth of capital, the security of thousands of jobs, the speed of the economic recovery, and the legacy of America's technological leadership. [...] It is time to see if the Bush Administration, Chairman Powell, and the FCC truly believe in the discipline of the free market or the heavy hand of regulation. [...] By the way, all of the newsletters that these guys put out, I have to say are really useful in terms of getting a sense of the debate and the implications. [...] And, indeed, one of the problems that we have today is that the market way overreacted to that growth and made very incorrect estimates of the demand one of the problems that we have today is that the market way overreacted to that growth and made very incorrect estimates of the demand for the use of the networks.

Providing readers with an authoritative account of what contributed to the "Great Telecom Crash," this insightful resource explores the roots of the perfect storm that buffeted telecom and Internet companies and investors.

While the Breaux-Nickles bill differs from the bill passed by the House in February, the basic message is the same: It's time to remove the disincentives to investment in broadband that are skewing the telecommunications marketplace and contributing to the continuing weakness of the IT sector of the economy. [...] At the core of the Breaux-Nickles approach is the concept that all participants in the broadband marketplace ought to function under the same deregulatory framework. [...] Why would the competitors invest in constructing their own facilities when it is less costly just to lease shared facilities from the ILECs?4 The market distortions caused by the FCC's misguided implementation of the Telecommunications Act have played a significant role in the current "telecom meltdown," and significantly slowed the build-out of the last-mile broadband infrastructure upon which re. [...] In September 1999, William Kennard, the FCC Chairman at the time, resisting calls to mandate an "open access" requirement on cable, agreed: "I have been there on the telephone side," and it would be wrong to "just pick up this whole morass of [telephone] regulation and dump in wholesale on the cable pipe."8 About the same time, the Chief of the FCC's Cable declared that, "I believe that market inc. [...] http://www.pff.org/pffdocket.html http://www.pff.org/contain.html Page 6 Progress on Point 9.15 The essential key to the Breaux-Nickles bill is that it requires the FCC to implement the desirable goal of regulatory parity-that is, applying the same regulations to comparable services offered by companies competing in the same marketplace-by "regulating downward".

Shaping American Telecommunications examines the technical, regulatory, and economic forces that have shaped the development of American telecommunications services. This volume is both an introduction to the basic technical, economic, and regulatory principles underlying telecommunications, and a detailed account of major events that have marked development of the sector in the United States. Beginning with the introduction of the telegraph and continuing through to current developments in wireless and online services, authors Christopher H. Sterling, Phyllis W. Bernt, and Martin B.H. Weiss explain each stage of telecommunications development, examining the interplay among technical innovation, policy decisions, and regulatory developments. Offering an integrated treatment of the interplay among technology, policy, and economics as key factors defining the development of the telecommunications sector in the United States, this volume also provides: *background material to facilitate understanding of each sector; *contexts for many so-called "new" issues, problems, and trends, demonstrating origins from years or decades in the past; and *careful annotation, documentation, and reference tables to enable further research on the topics discussed. This unique multidisciplinary approach provides a balanced view of U.S. telecommunications history, in context with relevant economic, legal, social, and technical analyses. As such, it is essential reading for advanced students in telecommunications needing to understand how the telecommunications industry and service developed to its current form. The volume will also serve as a supplemental text in courses on telecommunications regulation, and it will be of value to professionals in the field seeking context and background for their daily work.