This Policy Paper discusses important economic characteristics of local exchange markets and the firms that participate therein. First, this Policy Paper, building on the work in PHOENIX CENTER POLICY PAPER NO. 10, explains that entry into the local exchange market requires large fixed and sunk...

Given the conflicting characteristics of the telecoms business - i.e., huge dollars at stake on the one hand but the inherent "public utility" characterization of the industry on the other - public policy decision-making can often take on a surreal quality. After the events of the first half of...

This Policy Bulletin examines the Federal Communications Commission's decision to remove "new" Bell Operating Company fiber and "hybrid-fiber" facilities from the unbundling requirements of the 1996 Telecommunications Act as part of its Triennial Review. This Policy Bulletin demonstrates that...

After a brief discussion on expected and actual investment behavior in the telecommunications industry after the 1996 Act, an econometric model is used to quantify the relationship between UNE-P competition and Bell Operating Company investments in telecommunications plant. Using...

The purpose of this POLICY BULLETIN is to evaluate the robustness of the empirical results presented in PHOENIX CENTER POLICY BULLETIN NO. 5, Competition and Bell Company Investment in Telecommunications Plant: The Effects of UNE-P. To accomplish this goal, this POLICY BULLETIN incorporates the...

Government data on employment in the telecommunications industry reveals a substantial increase in sector employment following passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. This increase in employment reversed the declining jobs trend prior to the Act. Econometric analysis indicates that...

This Policy Bulletin measures the gains to consumer welfare of the new "all distance"/"all you can eat" competition produced by the market-opening provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Analysis reveals that the consumer welfare gain amounts to approximately $10 billion per year, and...

Fifty years ago, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter warned the Federal Communications Commission not to view competition in an abstract, sterile way. To illustrate the dangers of using such an abstract approach to the key issue of ILEC market power, this paper uses the Commission's...

Firms that wish to offer wireline, multichannel video programming services in direct competition with cable incumbents are being faced with calls by those incumbents and policymakers to "build-out" to entire communities as a pre-condition to receiving a franchise. This "build-out" requirement is...

This Policy Paper demonstrates that policies that hinder a new entrant's ability to sell video programming, such as forcing entrants to obtain a local cable franchise agreement, will strongly diminish that entrant's incentive to deploy fiber to low-income households. Using publicly-available...