1. Telephony & Satellite Technologies

2. Telecommunications Act of 1996 Removed entry barriers between local, long distance, and cable service providers Designed to stimulate competition in the telephone business So far, not much competition has emerged

3. Telephone Penetration More than 95% in United States $83 a month –$36 for local service –$12 for long distance –$35 for wireless

4. LATA Local Access Transport Area

5. Local Telephone Network Traditional: all lines go back to central office Fiber-to-feeder: all lines go to fiber remote terminal and then to central office

6. AT&T 800 pound gorilla Communication Act of 1934 –Immunity from antitrust actions –Promise to provide universal phone service –“Natural monopoly”

7. 1956 Consent Decree Law suit against AT&T dropped when they agreed to stay out of computer business

8. 1974 Lawsuit AT&T –Denied use of non-Bell equipment –Denied interconnection with Bell network –Held a bias toward Western Electric for equipment –Engaged in predatory pricing

9. MFJ in 1982 Seven RBOCs formed (baby bells) AT&T kept long distance business AT&T kept Western Electric AT&T entered the computer market

10. MFJ Ban Removed Telecommunications Act of 1996 removed ban of phone companies getting into the cable business To this day, telcos are more interested in pursuing markets in telephony than in cable

11. New Services? New types of content? Value-added services complementing basic service? New mechanisms for delivering existing and emerging services? New uses not feasible under the technical limitations of old networks?

12. No Over 90% of fiber optic capacity went unused in 2005

13. Ancillary Services Mass-audience applications for the telephone –800 and 900 numbers –Bundled packages LNP – Local Number Portability DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) –Developed in 1989 –Sat on a shelf for about a decade

14. Media Merger Verizon bought MCI in 2005 SBC bought AT&T – then became AT&T New AT&T has a local telephone service in many parts of the county AT&T wants to buy BellSouth

15. Telecommunications Act of 1996 and Bigness –Rate competition –Service quality –Public access –Freedom of speech

16. What Will Happen? Greater bandwidth Is cable Internet a telecommunications service? Voice over IP will continue to grow

17. Baby Bells SBC = Southwest Bell + Pacific Telesis + Ameritech Verizon = NYNEX + Bell Atlantic + GTE Qwest = U.S. West BellSouth = BellSouth