Reforming Telecom Regulation: An Essay Review of Nuechterlein and Weiser's Digital Crossroads

The U.S. telecom industry has long been evolving from regulated monopoly to competition in various services such as telephony and video. This trend is accelerating with the spread of digital transmission and the Internet. Digital Crossroads provides a timely and sweeping treatment of the entire industry, focusing on the interaction between regulatory policy and competition - lessons from the past, and the challenges ahead. This essay review synthesizes and extends the book's contributions around two central policy prescriptions: adopt a high intervention threshold before mandating "nondiscriminatory" access to perceived bottleneck facilities, and eliminate a host of outdated and arbitrary regulatory distinctions.