{
  "id": "RL31938",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "RL31938",
  "active": false,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 101111,
      "date": "2003-05-27",
      "retrieved": "2016-04-08T14:44:20.560544",
      "title": "Local Telephone Competition: A Brief Overview",
      "summary": "One of the central goals of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (P. L. 104-104) is to promote\ncompetition in the local(exchange) telephone market. The 1996 Act attempts to foster this\ncompetition by, among other provisions, requiring that the local monopoly infrastructure be opened\nup to competitors. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been tasked with\nimplementing a series of rulemakings to achieve this goal. In the seven years since the Act's\npassage, policy makers have continued to debate the extent to which this goal has been realized.\n  Although the local telephone market had experienced limited competitive entry in selected high\nend urbanized business markets since the 1980's, the birth of local exchange competition can be\ntraced, to a large degree, to changes that have occurred since the implementation of the market\nopening provisions contained in the 1996 Act. The major players involved in this transition are: \nthe incumbent local exchange carriers or ILECs, who control, but have been required to provide\naccess to, the legacy network; and a wide range of entities known as competitive local exchange\ncarriers, or CLECs, who, through these market opening provisions, have been encouraged to compete\nwith the ILECs for market share.\n  The ILECs, or established carriers, are composed of exchange carriers that are the historical\nholders of the franchise to provide exchange service, local transport, and switching services within\na designated service territory. Those who compete with the incumbents, or CLECs, enter the\nmarket in any one, or any combination, of three major ways: through resale of the ILEC's retail\nservices; through the use of unbundled network elements; or through the building of their own\nfacilities.\n  ILECs continue to dominate the local exchange market in terms of both revenue share (87.4\npercent) and number of access lines (88.6 percent), but CLECs have been steadily making inroads. \nThe CLEC industry has, overall, experienced a steady increase, in both real and absolute terms, in\nindustry revenues and access line market share. Despite this overall increase, the level of\ncompetition has entered markets, both in terms of service sector and geography, to varying degrees. \nIn general, high volume business markets have benefitted more from competitive entry as have more\ndensely populated markets. Competition in residential and small business markets and in geographic\nmarkets outside of major metropolitan areas, while increasing, generally tends to be less robust.\nILECs continue to dominate in the residential market. The growth of competition has been uneven\nwith some individual markets experiencing high levels of competitive entry and others experiencing\nnext to none. In the seven years since the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act competition\nhas grown, but perhaps at a slower pace than some envisioned. The entrance of competition in the\nlocal exchange market, however, continues to be a work in progress that remains subject to\neconomic, legal and regulatory forces.\n  This report will be updated as events warrant.",
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      "typeId": "REPORTS",
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