1 How Should We Judge Whether States Telecommunications Policies Are Deregulatory And Pro Competitive A Free Market Scorecard

The 1934 Act codified the sharing of juris- dictional authority, granting the Federal Communications Commission authority over interstate services while giving the states much of the authority to regulate the rates, terms, and conditions of intrastate offerings. [...] The act also gave the fcc primary authori- ty to implement several local telephone competition provisions contained in the legislation, including the issuance of rules gov- erning the availability and pricing of unbundled pieces of the incumbent telephone companies' local networks. [...] Does the state require additional unbundling and sharing of the incumbent's facilities? In implementing the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the fcc has issued rules that define the extent to which the incum- bent's local exchange network must be unbundled and shared with competitors. [...] To the extent that a state requires any level of unbundling and sharing in addition to the amount already mandated by the fcc, its actions hinder the develop- ment of local competition and are not deregulatory. [...] In order for the state's consumers to benefit from the additional competi- tion in the (increasingly less distinct) long distance and local marketplaces, the state must have a process in place that facil- itates timely and rational consideration of the application.