📺 Video & Takeaways: Telecom Act @ 30 Panel 📡
On the 30th anniversary of the Telecom Act of 1996, State of the Net hosted an all-star panel on where communications policy stands today and what comes next. Here are a few key takeaways from our expert panel – plus the full video if you want to dive in.
Key Takeaways
“Consumers clearly want convergence… but we have a Communications Act which is anti-convergence. It’s siloed… completely misaligned with how the market is operating today.” – David Don, Comcast NBCUniversal
“There were two things that I’m nostalgic for… a serious policymaking process grounded in substantive debate, and broad national optimism about technology improving lives.” – Blair Levin, New Street Research
“Because of the focus on competition, we took for granted the basic core public interest values… things like privacy, reliability, interconnection, and 911 services… those protections beyond competition are at risk, and we have to shore them up.” – Chris Lewis, Public Knowledge
“A lot of the fights we had about telecom policy… were about the broadband layer being a bottleneck… but the software layer is where we saw a massive reduction in competition.” – Evan Swarztrauber, Foundation for American Innovation