The 1996 Telecommunications Act seems to be encouraging competition in key segments of the telephone and cable television industries. Stock price data suggest that the wave of "megamergers" in telecommunications-probably an unanticipated result of the Telecommunications Act-is associated with...

The 1996 Telecoms Act featured policy successes and failures. Among the former are federal rules pre-empting state monopolies and the mandate for network interconnection. Among the latter is the mandatory sharing regime for fixed line telephone networks, over-turned by federal courts after eight...