The US Telecom Reform Act of 1996-“Will too many cooks ruin the stew?”

The Telecom Reform Act of 1996 is the most substantive piece of telecommunications legislation since the 1983 Consent Degree that outlined the breakup of the Bell System. Explicitly stated within the act is the desire to introduce intense competition, while maintaining the very high level of reliability, security, and interoperability of the United States Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). The job of implementing this pioneering legislation is now in the hands of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FCC has asked the telecommunications industry to voluntarily help outline how to make it happen. Over 200 technical experts from all parts of the telecommunications industry stepped up to the challenge as part of the Network Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC). The NRIC has completed its efforts and presented its findings and recommendations to the FCC and the public. I believe “we can have many more cooks - and not ruin the stew” if we, as an industry: actively participate in coordinated network planning and standards; use the tools and templates that are available to facilitate and substantiate our interconnection discussions and agreements; clearly communicate to each other and document what our performance metrics are and what actions will be taken if they are not met; preactively follow and use documented best practices, especially with regard to network and data security, and signaling route diversity, and; voluntarily participate in extensive network-to-network and network-to-CPE testing. These actions, coupled with the marketplace rewarding the best and punishing the troublemaker, will long term bring us the benefits of competition without compromising network reliability