著者

松宮 広和

出版者

群馬大学社会情報学部

雑誌

群馬大学社会情報学部研究論集 (ISSN:13468812)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.15, pp.71-108, 2008

被引用文献数

1

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On October 27, 2005, DOJ approved the SBC/AT&T and Verizon/MCI mergers. On October31, 2005, FCC authorized them. In these consent degrees, DOJ conditioned the divestiture ofsome special access connections to some buildings in these RBOCs'in-religion territories. Inaddition, FCC accepted voluntary, enforceable commitments made by the applicants as mergerconditions. These decisions altered the competitive framework of the U.S. telecommunicationsindustry since 1984, when former AT&T Corporation was divested. The TelecommunicationsAct of 1996 succeeded to the framework, and hypothesized that the PSTN continues to be theunrivaled infrastructure for the industry. Nevertheless, the rise of the IP-based networks hasoutdated it. FCC tried to modify the framework to accommodate to the Internet age.However, these adjustments also caused asymmetric regulations, which have caused a greatnumber of lawsuits since the AT&T Corp. v. City of Portland, 43 F. Supp. 2d 1146.Comprehensive legislation by the Congress based on the layers model is indispensable for thefuture.