FCC, carriers tangle over Internet telephony; the FCC, under pressure by phone companies, soon may regulate IT as a 'basic service.'
Article Abstract:
The Federal Trade Commission (FCC) is under pressure to regulate Internet telephony now that it has come closer to entering the mainstream. The service Internet telephony (IT) carriers can give is unburdened by the cross-subsidies and the regulatory obligations complicating traditional telephone service, a fact known to the FCC who would prefer to leave it that way. Unregulated Internet telephony would bring global competition to monopolized markets. IT's improvements, are, however, so great that it can be described as a basic service subject to FCC regulation.
Publication Name: The National Law Journal
Subject: Law
ISSN: 0162-7325
Year: 1998
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Monopolization of the 'Net?
Article Abstract:
Network externalities provided the reason for turning down the proposed merger of MCI Communications Corp and Worldcom Inc, and the effect of network externalities on the incentives of competing Internet service providers to cooperative became central to the competitive analysis of the WorldCom/ MCI. deal. MCI Worldcom seems to be the first horizontal merger case in which the agencies determined when a network market had substantial danger of tipping toward monopoly.
Publication Name: The National Law Journal
Subject: Law
ISSN: 0162-7325
Year: 1998
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New law details ownership rights on the Internet; the yea-old Digital Millennium Copyright Act leaves little room for judicial interpretation
Article Abstract:
The article discusses the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), whose goal is to legislate changes in the copyright commerce created by the Internet and protect from digital piracy the copyright industries that are are one of leading exports of the United States. The DMCA sets up a procedure by which Internet service providers can limit the availability of certain remedies normally flowing from the infringing activities of their subscribers.
Publication Name: The National Law Journal
Subject: Law
ISSN: 0162-7325
Year: 1999
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