The Local Telecommunications Market: It's not Competitive Now; Will it Ever be?

The "information superhighway" is an attractive idea and is no doubt essential to the competitive economic growth of communities throughout the United States. Getting on and off the highway requires use of the local exchange network-just as local roads are used to get on and off the vehicular interstate highways. Right now those local roads are controlled by monopoly local exchange carriers, so government policies are needed to allow private enterprise to construct new, competitive access systems in a cost-effective manner It is critical for legislatures and federal and state utility regulators to allow new entrants into the local telecommunications marketplace to establish themselves on fair and reasonable competitive terms. To do so requires continued constraints on the incumbent local exchange carriers, who have and will continue to have extraordinary market power Without such asymmetric policies, local telecommunications competition will be stifled, and businesses and other consumers who want a selection of local telecommunications providers from which to choose will never get one.