Broadband stimulus: look back at history to understand the future | MuniWireless

To properly direct the potential success of the federal broadband stimulus, we need to look back before moving forward. Looking back, the need to create greater competition in the United States telecommunications industry was recognized by both the Democratic and Republican parties. The consent decree of 1982 that broke up American Telephone & Telegraph Co. (AT&T) was under the Ronald Reagan administration, while the break up of the Bell operating companies occurred during the Clinton administration in 1996.

Deregulation spurred the deployment of fiber optic networks, which helped to fuel the dotcom boom and encourage the funding of technology start-ups all over the country. The networks that were built and the equipment and software required to build them created companies from nothing that became overnight stock market and business successes...