The Incidental, Accidental Deregulation of Data ... and Everything Else

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Abstract
Existing regulatory codes for telephone, cable and broadcast treat ‘data’ services as largely beneath ot outside official attention. ‘Enhanced servuces’ have been exclided from the ambit of ‘basic’, regulated telephony. They are exempt from access charges and almost completely free of most other forms of common-carrier regulation. Data services provided over mobile radio, cable, terrestrial broadcast and Direct Broadcasting Satellite likewise are excused from most forms of rate, content and carriage regulation. Data has long been the ‘incidental’ service tagged onto something else order and more important. As such, data has been the fotunate beneficiary of regulatory accident, inattention, neglect and indifference. Wires and radios alike will all soon be digital, and bandwidth is increasing rapidly in every medium. ‘Data’ traffic is growing far faster than analog voice or video. And on broadband digital channels ‘data’ encompasses everything. The data inmates ate taking over the regulatory asylum.

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