ARE U.S. TELECOM NETWORKS PUBLIC PROPERTY?

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

ARE U.S. TELECOM NETWORKS PUBLIC PROPERTY?

Are America's telephone networks privately owned or do they belong to the
government? The question seems an odd one. From the time of Alexander
Graham Bell, the vast majority of U.S. telephone companies have been
privately owned. Yet in the current debate over telephone regulation, some
people propose that telephone network assets belong to the public because
captive ratepayers funded them under a system of monopoly regulation. Far
from being a gift from an age long past, today's ILEC networks are
overwhelmingly the product of recent private investment. Critically,
maintaining and upgrading these networks depends upon a continuation of
that private investment. Declaring the networks to be "public property"
would not only be legally and historically wrong, but also economically
dangerous.

[SOURCE: Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, AUTHOR: James Gattuso and
Norbert Michel]
<http://www.heritage.org/Research/InternetandTechnology/bg1745.cfm>

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