The 1996 Telecommunications Act: ten years later.
Like all legislation, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 ("1996 Act") was justified on the basis of the public interest. And as in many legislative processes, the public interest was interpreted by each stakeholder group as coterminous with its own, while think tanks and policy advocates jockeyed for position, sniped...

Smut on the small screen: the future of cable-based adult entertainment following United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group.
I. INTRODUCTION On May 22, 2000, the Supreme Court narrowly affirmed a decision of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, holding that section 505 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 violates the First Amendment. (1) Under section 505, cable television providers offering channels...

Public Policy Toward Cable Television: The Economics of Rate Controls.
Public Policy Toward Cable Television: The Economics of Rate Controls , by Thomas W. Hazlett and Matthew L. Spitzer, The MIT Press and The AEI Press, 1997, 253 pages. To paraphrase William Shakespeare: to regulate or not to regulate, that is the question. Legislators, regulators, economists, and...

Lost in multi-media hyperspace.
The fate of the big, bad monopolist and the big, bad cable-TV law. WE'VE ALL BEEN READING ABOUT the excitement in telecommunications markets, with mammoth mega-mergers, sprawling joint ventures, incredibly advanced high-tech products, and massive new regulatory laws (such as the Cable Act of 1992) dotting the front page...

Does video delivered over a telephone network require a cable franchise?
I. INTRODUCTION II. THE DEVELOPMENT OF CABLE SERVICES A. The Retransmission of Distant Broadcast Signals B. Local Franchising of Cable Systems C. The Emergence of Rival Programming Distributors and Vertical Integration into Programming by Cable Operators D. Consolidation of Cable Operators at both the National and Local Levels III....

Cable operators' Fifth Amendment claims applied to digital must-carry.
I. INTRODUCTION II. MUST-CARRY AND RETRANSMISSION CONSENT RULES A. Analog Must-Carry B. Analog Must-Carry Ru les Are Ctitutional C. Digital Must-Carry III. CABLE FIFTH AMENDMENT CLAIMS A. Physical Appropriation B. Regulatory Takings IV. COMPELLED SPEECH AND PROPERTY IN THE CABLE CONTEXT W. CONCLUSION I. INTRODUCTION ...

Portland cable decision affects St. Louis.
A decisive blow has been struck in the ongoing "wire wars" in which telephone and cable companies battle over which will bring you high-speed Internet access. A federal appeals court has decided a crucial Portland, Ore. case in favor of the cable guys. A judge's ruling late...

Six degrees of separation operational separation as a remedy in European Telecommunications Regulation.
Abstract: Numerous proposals have been made for separation in the telecommunications sector, some of which have been implemented, including the break-up of the Bell system in the 1980s and the widespread implementation of accounting separation. In recent years, attention has been focussed on operational separation. This paper identifies the...

The cubic zirconia court.
"Must carry" cable rules don't sparkle Twice in the 1980s, federal appeals courts threw out must carry rules crafted by the Federal Communications Commission. These regulations forced cable TV systems to give channel space to every local broadcast (over-the-air) television station. The courts found this infringement of the editorial...

Trai seeks legal opinion on MTNL's IPTV services.
Byline: Manoj Gairola NEW DELHI: Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) services launched by the government-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) amidst much fanfare on Saturday in Mumbai and on Tuesday in Delhi are illegal as per the Cable Televisions Networks (Regulations) Act. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India...